


Scrape the Bottom Of

by orange_8_hands



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Inception (2010), No Fandom, Supernatural
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Season/Series 08, Alternate Season/Series 09, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angels are Dicks, Child Abandonment, College, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Episode Fix-it, Episode Related, Episode Remix, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi, Original Character(s), Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Originally Posted on Tumblr, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, Post-Apocalypse, Purgatory, Season/Series 05, Teenagers, Torture, Unrefridgerating Awesome Women, Vessels, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-04-03 18:53:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 23,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4111402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_8_hands/pseuds/orange_8_hands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>slices of life, WIPs, and other assorted stuff. (the a03 equivalent of a beloved junk drawer)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction & Chapter Listings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a listing of all the stories so if you're interested you can keep track of what chapter is what. If I ever finish any of the wip I'll provide a link to the story on this page, but I may remove the piece as an actual chapter. 
> 
> This is honestly a small sample of wips and does not include any of the many headcanons I tend to email to friends.
> 
> "Abandoned" means the piece ("wip") or verse ("series") isn't complete but since its posted here I do one day hope to get back to it. Just to clarify some of these end rather abruptly.

 

**Back to the Basics II**

     - SPN Fandom

     - The cops can keep knocking 

     - Claire centric spanning 4.20-post S7; includes screencap; ~600 words; completed

     - [Originally posted](http://oranges8hands.tumblr.com/post/91096442868/i-kidnapped-by-your-dad-neighbors-killed-a) on tumblr July 2014

 

**Emma’s First Day of School**

     - SPN Fandom

     - Emma's first day of college

     - Emma & Dean S8 AU; ~400 words; completed scene but abandoned series

     - [Originally posted](http://oranges8hands.tumblr.com/post/85797673578/emmas-first-day-of-school) on tumblr May 2014

 

**The Practical Application of Doubt**

     - SPN Fandom

      - It is seven archangels between Lucifer and Heaven; it is five vessels and two rogue angels between them and Earth.  

      - Anna, Amelia, OFC povs, takes place 4.21-4.22; ~3500 words; completed first chapter/prologue of an abandoned WIP

      - [Originally posted](http://orange-8-hands.livejournal.com/18931.html) on LJ Dec 2011

 

**You're A Survivor**

     - No Fandom/"general post-apocalyptic" fandom

     - You are as much a child of war as its survivor. 

     - OC centric; ~1400 words; completed

     - Originally posted on LJ Nov 2011

 

**Mother, Mother May I**

     - Harry Potter Fandom

     - "It's fine," he says again, because Ron still hasn't moved. (Harry/Ron)

     - Harry pov, Harry/Ron during the beginning of movie 7, part 1; ~ 2700 words; completed scene but abandoned series

     - Originally posted on LJ Dec 2011

 

**You Are a Crooked Rising Star**

     - SPN Fandom, Inception Fandom (crossover)

     - At one time, Emma fancied herself in love with Claire. Before Angel Incorporation, before Jimmy's body was sent back to her in pieces, Emma looked at her, at the way Claire grabbed hold and wouldn't let go of her, and thought _oh_. _You see me_.     Claire, as if to prove the point, has never bothered to ask for forgiveness.

     - Emma pov, Emma/Claire beginning a job; ~ 1100  words; abandoned WIP

 

**Choose Your Own Adventure**

     - SPN Fandom

      - Let's just get to the root of you, shall we? [Emma-centric]

      - Emma in Purgatory; ~3200 words; completed first chapter of an abandoned WIP

 

**Our Hearts Are Hard**

     - SPN Fandom

      - Kevin went to the ~~desert~~ boathouse so he could decipher the Word of God.    Meanwhile his mom is taking to hunting like a duck to water, Channing is adjusting to normal life after being demon possessed for a year, and Emma won't leave him alone.

      - Kevin centric; this section takes place post 8.7 to 8.12; ~3000 words; abandoned WIP

 

**Daughter Come Home  
**

     - SPN Fandom

      - Claire could give less than two shits about using Castiel. As far as she's concerned, it's tit for tat.

      - Claire centric; 10.9 re-do; ~1000 words; abandoned WIP

 

**it's the end of the world and all I got was this lousy t-shirt  
**

     - SPN Fandom

      - In which it's the end of the world (somewhere off screen), and Emma is a teenager. (S8/9 AU)

      - Emma pov; S8/9 AU in which the bunker is used as a hunter-base for the war against demons; ~ 3600 words; abandoned WIP

 

**Lineage  
**

     - SPN Fandom

      - Emma completes the ritual and kills Dean

      - Emma centric; 7.13 re-do; ~ 900 words; abandoned WIP

 

**They Call Me Darling**

     - SPN Fandom

     - Sam leaves a gap in Purgatory, and Emma slips through it.

     - Emma centric; S9 AU; ~900 words; headcanon to be turned into fic

     - Originally posted [on tumblr](http://oranges8hands.tumblr.com/post/113827893223/they-call-me-darling) 

 

**The Third Brother**

     - SPN Fandom

     - Adam discovers family.

     - Adam POV, S5; ~260 words

    - Originally posted on my LJ; unsure of date but assume 2011-ish

 

**Dee's Awesome Research Skills**

     - SPN Fandom

     - This is why Tootsie showed up in their room.

     - Timestamp to [Lollipops Will Grow In Your Garden](http://archiveofourown.org/works/351120) [from my Nails and Teeth series]; ~150 words

    - Originally posted on my LJ; unsure of date but assume same as the fic so March 2012

 

**Love’s March (I Will Follow You)**

     - SPN Fandom

    - Inside the last seal [S4 AU]

    - OC; S4 AU; ~330 words

    - Originally posted on my LJ; unsure of date but assume 2011-ish

 

 


	2. Back to the Basics II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cops can keep knocking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [would have added this to [Back to the Basics](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1542323/chapters/3266057) instead but I didn't warn for it before people kudosed/bookmarked it. [Originally posted](http://oranges8hands.tumblr.com/post/91096442868/i-kidnapped-by-your-dad-neighbors-killed-a) on tumblr July 2014]

 

 **i.**

Kidnapped by your dad. Neighbors killed. A warehouse of bodies. You and your mother ignore their advice to run, and tell the cops (almost) everything. You are ten and lying to the cops. You are white, and middle class, and when they think you are out of hearing range they call you poor girl, victim, fucked.

 **ii.**

You are eleven. A pair of agents come by and ask you and your mother things. There was a factory of dead bodies. A hospital of dead bodies. An apartment complex of dead bodies. There are cameras and when they look at footage all they can see is your father’s body.

“Do you recognize the names Dean and Sam Winchester?”

 **iii.**  


If you ignore the thing inside of you and the signs around you, there is a long period of silence. And then one day…

“He apparently declared himself God,” the Detective tells your mom, mouth grimacing at the crosses she has started to hang, as if you didn’t already know the way Castiel still carries your father like he has a right to the skin of him.

Two years later, you are still the only clue connecting what Jimmy Novak used to be to what the police believe he is, and they ask you questions you have no answers to.

(You wonder when Castiel will come for you.)

**iv.**

You are fifteen now, and look older, and they have less patience for the daughter of the man on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, accomplice to two other men back on the Most Wanted List. 

They bring you in. They make you repeat everything about the first time. You tell the story about the kidnapping. You talk about the neighbors. The way the blood spilled. The way the rope felt tied around your waist. You don’t know what they want but it must be something, and the only secret you still have is the smoke pouring from your mother’s mouth, the way Castiel pushed inside of you until you felt like drowning, the way your father looked into the thing behind your eyes and asked to be taken.

“He’s never contacted you?” they ask, over and over, as if your answer will change if they just ask enough.

**v.**

There are never any demons who come after you. No angels, no monsters. Nothing tries to use you, or break you, or kill you. Castiel never asks again. You search for signs of Jimmy in the book series and there’s never any mention. You search for ways to kill angels, to find monsters, to track grace. You search and you find answers about protections that go deeper than anything else, and then…you stop.

You put it away.

You live the life you were once going to have, the one your father sacrificed to keep. You live the life like it is penance, or a promise, until it stops being something you think about and becomes something you just do.

Sometimes, there is just this: A book deal about three notorious killers never caught. A rumor about a haunting, a battle, a spell. The photos of your father that no longer make you cringe. A cold case and an agent desperate for answers. A hunter, who recognizes you and pretends they don’t.

Sometimes, there is just this: dead bodies, and no answers, and a missing father, and you have to tell them in-between the moments of the life you’ve built, “No.”

“No, I don’t know what he’ll do next.”


	3. Emma’s First Day of School

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> S8 AU; abandoned series chronicling Emma's firsts. This started as a cheer-up for [musings](http://musingsdeme.tumblr.com/) but never went anywhere (as most of the stuff I try to write her seems to do), especially since I deleted like 3k of this fic and another 2k of Emma's First Best Friend and Emma's First Meet the Parents. [Originally posted](http://oranges8hands.tumblr.com/post/85797673578/emmas-first-day-of-school) on tumblr May 2014.

“So, uh,” Dean starts, thumbs drumming softly on the steering wheel. Everything’s already been brought up, and Emma’s arms are crossed as she waits for him to say goodbye through the window. “Call if you need anything. And I’ll - I’ll swing by in a month.”

“Can’t wait, Dad,” she says, sickly sweet.

He frowns. “Seriously Emma, just be fucking careful, you still don’t -”

“I know,” Emma cuts off. “Maybe if I got to finish my fucking training -”

“Yeah, glad to know my death would bother you, kid.”

“Well mine didn’t seem to -”

“Goddammit Em-”

“Yeah well, whatever, we said goodbye, you can drive off, I’ll go be human since that’s what you -”

“I am not having this argument with you-”

“Oh because you listened so well the first few-”

“ -again and will you stop fucking starting this in public when-”

A Residential Advisor pops up in front of the car. He taps the window where the “twenty minute parking” paper is visible, and Emma and Dean’s both turn their scowls on him.

“Time’s up, we need the space.”

“Yeah, one minute,” Dean says.

The RA is about to say something, but Dean could also moonlight as a serial killer when he gets a certain look on his face, and the kid’s eyes widen before he nods and steps back to doing whatever the hell RA people do, because it sure as shit wasn’t helping them move the boxes up three flights of stairs.

Dean turns to her, sighs, face sagging and sometimes he still looks like he did two years ago, which mostly she’s okay with, but not exactly the last thing she wants to see before he ditches her.

“Call, okay? If you need anything, you can always call me.”

“I will.” She lowers her eyes, scruffs one of her boots on the ground and feels more like she’s five than she actually did when she was five (which only lasted about a hour and a half anyway.) “Not just if I get in trouble.”

When she finally looks up he’s smiling, eyes still sad but making an effort, and for the first time she regrets choosing California. “I’d like that, kiddo,” he says, and then the Impala is gone and Emma’s standing there trying not to cry.


	4. The Practical Application of Doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is seven archangels between Lucifer and Heaven; it is five vessels and two rogue angels between them and Earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Originally posted](http://orange-8-hands.livejournal.com/18931.html) on LJ Dec 2011. Abandoned WIP - this was the first chapter/prologue. (this section takes place during "When the Levee Breaks" and "Lucifer Rising") 
> 
> TW: torture, vessel/consent

You'll inherit the divine  
You are God/you best believe  
Don't waste your time down on your knees  
It's everybody for themselves  
     - "Wine" by Saul Williams  
  
  
**Part I** :  
  
**i.**  
You break, you always break, when they take you home and ram faith back into you.  
  
Anael inhabits a body in Heaven the same way Dean once did in Hell; it is nerve endings and bones to break, muscles to rip and flesh to flay. The end motive may change but Lucifer taught everyone the same methodology, and the low roll of his chuckle sparks the harshest of shudders. Curved blades pin her hands down and straight razors slice designs into her wings, and always the voices of her brethren tell her to believe, to obey, to follow the will of Our Father.  
  
Zachariah visits, faces smug. Israfel glides past and keeps her eyes on the blood making patterns below her. Rafael says nothing, and Uriel shakes his head. Jophiel smiles. Anael keeps track like she once kept box scores, like she once counted cherries on her birthday cake and the number of bibles in her house. Eyes, ears, tongue, nose, skin, they strip her of human senses until all that is left is angel.  
  
She swallows Anna Milton, turns a human life into something like a dream, if only angels dreamed. Her grace swells, the light of a true believer. She bows her head, and when they finally ask her if she regrets her fall, her yes is the yes of certainty, and whispers across all their minds.  
  
**ii.**  
Amelia sits at the bedside of her daughter and thinks, _This is when I would have prayed_.  
  
Jimmy is a broken heart that broke again, but her faith is an oozing wound. When she was seven she ran her fingers over her family's pew and caught a splinter, and she remembers it wasn't pain so much as shock, shock that something could hurt her in a house of God, that had her gasping. Her mother reached for her hand and cradled it, pulled tweezers from her endless bag and plucked it out, kissed her finger and then pressed her finger to her lips, like it would be a secret between them. Amelia can still taste the smoky blackness of the demon, no matter how many cups of coffee she downs, but it is Castiel that coats her mouth with bitterness.  
  
Claire didn't go to sleep so much as pass out, exhausted to her core. _I'm fine mom_ , she says, keeps saying, face turned out to the car's window, focus past the rolling hills and small towns they drive through, no destination, not anymore, and Amelia doesn't know how to call her daughter a liar without everything spilling out.  
  
Just because you are a mother doesn't mean you stop wanting your own, and even as she lays down to cradle Claire to her she wishes her mom could do the same for her. She doesn't close her eyes because in the past few days she's seen more blood than she ever expected, and it is nothing and everything like the blood in movies. Her parents are frozen bodies on a wooden floor in her childhood home, one of her rescuers drank blood, her daughter was an angel and her husband still is, and for four of the longest hours of her life she was subsumed by a demon. She remembers everything, her limbs moving against her jerky shouts of no, wanting to tell Jimmy, wanting to grab him and give him their daughter to protect this time, to keep Claire away from ash and hatred and smugness. Claire just shook her head when Amelia fumbled out her description of being a demon - _it wasn't like that, he was too big to see behind_ , like Castiel overwhelmed her away from the surface. A week ago she would have said the angel protected her child, but it's been five dead bodies and a daily purchase of more salt to line the doorways with; Amelia is already hardening under the onslaught.  
  
The knock on the motel room door is as loud as a shotgun in the peace Amelia thought she created. She jackknives up, heart pounding. _Do demons knock?_ and Amelia can remember all of Claire's endless knock knock jokes, orange you glad I didn't say banana. She eases off the bed, hand over Claire's mouth and shaking her shoulder roughly. Claire wakes instantly, understands instantly - there is a part of Amelia that still has time to mourn the awareness now carved into her daughter's eyes - and nods her head. Amelia grabs the water bottle of holy water, motions Claire with her own water bottle already in hand to get behind her. She takes a breath, unlocks the door, hopes for a manager or maid or patron who left something behind, but its near 11 o'clock and the only thing someone at this kind of motel would leave behind is condoms.    
  
The woman - girl? she could be entering high school, she could be entering college, she could be finishing either one - stands with her arms open, the universal I come in peace, the universal I mean no harm. Amelia thinks she may be East Asian, and she wears jeans and boots and a black sweater with some kind of writing on it - a band? - faded from beatings in too many washing machines, a jean jacket in similar condition.  
  
She glances at the salt lining the door and nods to herself, like salt is a perfectly normal welcome mat to a motel room door. "Watch," she says, pointing to her eyes, and adds "Christo." She leans down, pinches some salt in her fingers, and drops it into her mouth. She holds her hand out and Amelia wordlessly hands it over, watches her gulp half the bottle. She hands it back and smiles, like this is good, like testing for demons is normal, the best way to greet strangers, that this girl knowing how isn't just as disturbing as the fact she needs to.  
  
_Oh, Jimmy_ , and it is anger below the cracks of this new world without him.  
  
"So, not a demon," she says, arms spread wide again, voice deeper than Amelia expected, maybe the faintest hint of a Texas accent. "Can I come in?"  
  
"You could be an angel," Amelia says, her voice steady and calm (not dead, it's not dead, she hasn’t given up, she's fighting the waves of horror crashing down on her), and behind the teenage attitude of rolled eyes is something unfathomable and cold. It reminds her of Claire - no, Castiel, it was Castiel - telling Jimmy about his real home, the fields of the Lord, and Amelia can't keep the shudder to herself.  
  
She is tired. (She is still fighting.) She is lost. Her faith is shattered. (She is still fighting.) Her family is either dead or broken, and her hands still ache from the gun a demon used to shoot her husband. That this is not the life she wanted or planned is beside the point; this is a life she wouldn't have known how to imagine. So when the girl's face softens and she says, "I'm here to help you, really," Amelia steps back and gamble's her daughter's life on the forty years before the last few months. If angels break worlds if not words, then maybe saviors aren't just two men who give you a stolen car and a phone number like it worked the first time, who send you to your parents to hide only to discover your safe house has already been compromised.  
  
Her eyes scan the room as she swings out the chair and sits on it backwards in front of the bed, leaning like Claire used to, as if the chair wouldn't dare fall. Amelia can't settle on an age, and it bothers her, another brick falling off the foundation. Children are to be children, and protected, and that she has failed so utterly with her own daughter doesn't stop the spurt of annoyance that someone else has too. Amelia has always been a mother comfortable with judging other mothers.  
  
"Okay," she says, clasping her hands and then releasing them as Amelia settles besides Claire, tucking her close. "This is going to sound very strange."  
  
Amelia lets out a hoarse laugh of disbelief. "Stranger than angels and demons?"  
  
"Are you a hunter?" Claire asks, and it's only when the woman's eyes catch Claire's that Amelia realizes she hasn't looked at her daughter once. Something flickers - in the air, in her daughter's eyes - and Claire leans back with a soft "oh."  
  
"Claire?" Amelia asks, hands tightening uselessly on the half-empty water bottle.  
  
"Not really," the girl answers as Claire says, "She's a vessel too."  
  
"My name is Jennifer," and her accent is thicker.  
  
"You can tell that?" Amelia asks.  
  
"Only once an angel's been inside you," Jennifer says as Claire shrugs, the first childish movement Amelia has seen her make since this began. Amelia catches the implication immediately - _you can do better on your test Claire, you got your mother's brains_ \- and clasps Claire tighter.  
  
"What happened?" Jennifer asks, but no, just no.  
  
"What do you want with us?" Amelia says, though really, there's no hiding behind such a useless word, Amelia is not the one they want.  
  
Jennifer claps her hands on her knees, looks back to Amelia. "You dealt with demons, right? A milk run, they like to call it. Pick up an empty vessel. Make sure heaven can't get it back, maybe torture some secrets out of it. I've been tracking you. Saw the warehouse. The angel - it's back in your husband, right?"  
  
Amelia nods. There are no words, not for this, not for any of this.  
  
"I'm sorry. I can't save him. No one can. Not at this point. But you can protect your daughter. You need to protect your daughter." She looks old again, like Claire filled with an angel. "There's a war coming. Angels are walking among us for the first time in a long time, but it's not that many, not yet. But if - if the end does come, if - let's just say there's a very good possibility the world is going to end in a really big battle, and when it does all the angels are going to find their vessels and fight. And they aren't fighting for humanity." Her eyes bore into Amelia. "Do you understand? Angels are not here to help us. And we can't stop them once they're on Earth. The only way is to stop the vessel from saying yes."  
  
"Castiel has Jimmy. He doesn't need Claire anymore."  
  
"Amelia," and her eyes burn, a child should not be looking at her naivety with such pity, "Angels lie."  
  
"Not Castiel," Claire argues, but even her voice is doubtful. _Of course we keep our promises. Of course you have our gratitude._ But those were easy words, and didn't seem very true in the wake of everything left behind.  
  
"I'm sorry," Jennifer says again. "Angels have one true vessel line, and the only one on this one is Jimmy and Claire. There are other vessels they can take, but the human body can't hold them, not for long. If something happens to Jimmy's body that the angel, that Castiel can't heal, he's going to come back for Claire. Claire," she adds, and waits until Claire looks at her. "You can't say yes. No matter what, you can't say yes. They're going to threaten everyone you love and yourself. They're going to hurt you and promise you anything and everything. But you can't say yes."  
  
There is an endless beat of silence, and then Claire gives an infinitesimal nod. "I'm going to teach you to hide. Both of you," Jennifer adds, glancing back at Amelia. "But if they find you...it's not just your life, okay?"  
  
"The demons are after us," Amelia says, because she doesn't know - can't, not yet, not right now - deal with what Claire's nod means, what Jennifer is saying.  
  
"It's not so much that they care about Claire as they do about the dead demons in the warehouse. They don't get how two humans just escaped." Jennifer frowns. "How did you escape?"  
  
"Two hunters, apparently, were traveling with Castiel when he...when Jimmy came back into himself. A demon took me over and used Claire as bait to get Jimmy back, and the two...they helped rescue us."  
  
She hums. "Most hunters don't know about angels. Did they give you names? A phone number?"  
  
"Dean and Sam Winchester," Claire says, and Amelia adds "But the number is for someone named Bobby. Do you know them?"  
  
Jennifer shakes her head. "No. But I don't know many hunters. Can you give me the number?"  
  
Amelia takes the napkin out of her pocket, smooths it on her knee. She's memorized it, unfolded and folded it so often she knows exactly where on the five the pen breaks, just a little lighter than the rest. It is crumpled and worn and sweat stains it, where Amelia clutched it in her pocket like a lifeline, like a miracle, like if she just called everything would be better. (She still hasn't called; a miracle doesn't last after being told it doesn't exist.) She hands it to Jennifer, who takes out her cell phone and enters the number, and there is something so normal, so commonplace about the gesture, that Amelia can't help but stare. Angels and demons and cell phone plans. She wants to laugh - hysterical, it would be hysterical - but no, not yet, this is not her humor, not really, she doesn't want this to be her humor. Not until it has to be, not until there's nothing left.  
  
She clutches Claire tighter, wants to weld her daughter to her skin.  
  
"Okay," Jennifer says, looking up. "I'm going to teach you how to hide, from all of them. Angels, demons, humans. Okay? I was serious, I'm here to help."  
  
They spend hours going over everything. Amelia takes notes, like she used to during lectures in art history, and asks pointed questions about what Jennifer says. (Not about the war, the battle, angels and demons and where were humans? Amelia is saving her daughter and herself; she is not in charge of humanity.) This is how you stay off the radar from humans. This is how you block angels from finding you, from talking to you in dreams. This is how you trap a demon. Jennifer sketches out a design that needs to be made in blood. She draws out a symbol for them to get tattooed (the ash of a demon lays on Amelia's tongue and holds it from voicing any objections to inking her twelve year old daughter's body). She tells them about scams and standing out in crowds and living out of a bag always packed.  
  
She hands Amelia a napkin with a phone number and an email address, a prepaid cell phone, a fake credit card and a driver's license with Amelia's face, and a small knife. Claire takes it first - Amelia does not flinch, her daughter is holding a knife but she does not flinch - and balances it on her knee. She listened but seemed disengaged, and Claire was not a still child, her daughter vibrates, laughs, uses limbs to cling and hands to grab, but not now, not anymore, all she does is tilt her head slightly and watch Jennifer with too quiet eyes.  
  
"Keep in touch," Jennifer says, like they just exchanged numbers in a supermarket, like the new napkin in Amelia's pocket is not already crinkling with the weight of Amelia's hand clutching it. Bobby is a faceless name and the Winchesters - she did not forget the blood dripping off one of them, she did not forget the brush off from the other - are the heroes who saved the day and rode off into the sunset, leaving the town with bullet holes and dead bodies, but this woman is the one who explained how she tracked Amelia. This woman explained how to stop someone else from doing the same.  
  
She gets up - Amelia is a reserved person but she wants to grab Jennifer, hold her, cling to her, she can't do this alone - and starts to leave the room. "Claire," she says suddenly, and her daughter looks up. "You didn't know, and you're not to blame. Not about any of this. But now you do. If Castiel comes back...you have to say no, no matter what."  
  
She slips out before either of them can say anything else, and Amelia startles when Claire suddenly gets off the bed and flings the door open.  
  
"Claire," Amelia says, and grabs her arm before Claire can cross the salt lines. She looks out into the parking lot, but it's silent, still - where did she go? - and Claire lets her gently herd her back into the room. Amelia bolts the door against humans and checks the salt line for demons; this is her new world order.  
  
And Claire just looks at her, and it’s everything and nothing and _Jimmy, how could you_?  
  
**iii.**  
It’s just a dream the same way a cigar is just a cigar.  
  
"You will give yourself to me again. You will say yes again. You know this as well as I do. So why do you struggle?"  
  
"You aren't going to find me," and if it is bravado it is at least said steadily, unequivocally.  
  
"How many have you found so far? Seven, eight? Do you know how many angels there are? That will come down and fight? You catch a few empty vessels and you think you can stop the whole army?"  
  
It is her grandmother's living room, and she never quiet figured out why they always talked here. The couches are white and protected in plastic, and the room smells faintly of lemony vinegar, the wood floors cleaned with her own recipe. It is not a comfortable room, and she stands in her boots and her jeans and feels as small as she always does in this room, underdressed and never clean enough. The angel wears her mother's face this time, sympathetic face, her mother kissing childhood bruises and holding hands steady on the wood spoon and voice reading her a bedtime story, just one more, please mom, and her own voice is no longer steady when she says "It's something."  
  
"This won't stop the battle from coming."  
  
"That's not my responsibility. Others are in charge of that."  
  
"It's funny," and still, always, that gentle voice, "that you trust a rogue angel but not me. Have I ever lied to you? Ever deceived you?"  
  
"I remember what it was like," she says, digging her hands into the couch cushion, a useless anchor.  
  
"You survived. I made sure of it. But that's not what I'm referring to."  
  
"Then what are you talking about?" The walls are white too, and there's no pictures hanging up. It's just a white room she will always be too dirty for. "What lies am I being told?"  
  
"She knows who the Winchesters are. She knows how likely it is they will be able to stop the battle. She knows where more vessels are than she's told you. Yet she is not here. She knowingly breaks God's Will, and tells you it is just."  
  
The angel places her mother's hand on her shoulder, and she flinches. "I have fought beside her for many years. I know how her mind works. That won't change because she took a few years out of thousands to pretend to be human. When the time comes, she will destroy your soul so I can't put you back in your body. She will stop your existence."  
  
"If that's what it takes," she says. The room is just so, so bright, the white blinding.  
  
The angel shakes her mother's head. She's taller than her mom, and can see the lines of gray threading through her hair, small glints between the black. She remembers her mother brushing her hair, soothing motions as they giggled their way through everything that happened that day, before she tucked her in bed, turned off the light.  
  
"Jennifer," the angel says, and her eyes swing over to her mother's eyes. "It's starting."  
  
She can't see the angel's grace, the angel's true form, over the white of the room. It's a hum, it's a noise, white walls, white carpet (was that always there?), white couch. The plastic feels melted, mutable in her hands. Of their own violation her hands reach out to grab her mother (when did she get so close?) and pull her in.  
  
"Baby," and she can't see, not through the taste of smoke, not through the white white walls, but that's her mother's voice, that voice tucked her in at night, "Just say yes."  
  
"I remember everything" Jennifer drags out, and the light is overwhelming.  
  
"It's the apocalypse, Jennifer. Sacrifices must be made. I'll be seeing you soon," the angel adds, not unkindly, but Jennifer can't listen because this, this is the end of the world, and it’s so bright. 


	5. You're A Survivor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You are as much a child of war as its survivor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a tiny series (I'm putting together in one chapter) that was for "general post-apocalyptic" fandom more than a specific one. [Originally posted](http://orange-8-hands.livejournal.com/15273.html) on LJ Nov 2011.
> 
> cw: non-graphic mentions of suicidal thoughts, character deaths, torture, disfigurement, alcohol used for insomnia

**You Carry Your World on Your Back (In Your Hands)**  
  
You wear all your clothes because your pack is full of food, and your hands hold your gun because survival isn't even close to a certainty. You walk the soldier's walk, miles of uneven pavement eaten up under the steady clomping of boots. You never wanted to join an army and now you're leading one.  
  
The gloves leave the first knuckle of your fingers free, and you run your calloused skin over metal, over ammo, over dead bodies and open arteries. They are your life, your strength, your hatred. You eat with them, ragged nails acting as toothpicks after meals. You fuck with them, rubbing clits, stroking dicks, giving pleasure another kind of resistance. You kill with them, squeezing triggers, digging into any soft flesh you can find, razors across throats and knives into unprotected bellies.  
  
You don't sleep, can't, honestly, until exhaustion mixes with enough moonshine to knock yourself out. Your liver is rotting, a slow poison like the worst compromise, but then so is the damage you do with every bone you break and don't let set right, every bruise that glances off important organs. The only part of you that doesn't ache is your hair.  
  
You can't let anyone become someone you depend on. You rotate your people through the fields, until they can all sew clothes and flesh, until they can all cook and clean, until they can all pack guns and use them. You were never a kid but you are young, and that they listen to you is always a surprise. They think you lead by example, that you won't ask for what you won't do, and you're not stupid enough to tell them its just a matter of trust. You have none.  
  
You lose an ear, at one point. Cut off and you want to mourn the loss, but can't help laughing, belly laughs that shake your frame and cause tears you won't shed in sorrow to spurt. When you torture you take out knees, you take out eyes, you take out feet and hands and you make it so they're useless. They take your ear, as if you need full hearing to fight, the ear that's already gone deaf. They beat you, as if you haven't felt fists before. They forget temporary pain is temporary, and you always believed in long-term thinking.  
  
You miss the small things more than you've ever missed the big. Laundry warm from the dryer and smelling clean. Fresh strawberries, plucked gently away from low hanging stems. A crappy book and even crappier TV show. You don't miss family. You don't miss safety. You don't miss promises that have since turned to lies. To miss those even slightly would be the end of you; you'd never be able to breath again, never move, stuck in place like your feet were welded to the ground.  
  
You don't dream. It's a kindness. You're fighting because you can, not because you believe. Hope was never your strong point. You live because its the biggest _fuck you_ you can send, and petty revenge can only carry you so far. You know your end will be just as bloody as your beginning. You don't think you'll win the war. You don't even think you're winning the battle.  
  
When death finally comes for you, you'll lay down your arms and beg to be taken. You are a hero only because they call you that.

 

 

 **You Are Hurt (Maybe the World Gets Better)**  
  
You finally find out getting shot sucks. You assumed, but now you have hard evidence, in a shattered collar bone and a puckered scar and three days of a fever that wipes out any strength the bullet may have left you. You have never been a good patient, have always preferred the patch-and-go method, but your doctor and second-in-command know the perfect mix of pleas, threats, and guilt to keep you in bed longer than you would ever want.   
  
You discover the joy of playing twenty-one questions with the other patients in the room. You aren't very good at guessing, but you are very good at keeping them guessing, even Mrs.Barchett, who can usually figure it out by question twelve. You develop a certain level of pride in your skills at stumping her. You admit trash-talking a sixty-eight year old freedom fighter is the most childish you've ever acted.  
  
You do not cry when the infection spreads and she dies. Maybe you are a little quieter, but then, you were always a very quiet person, and no one else in the room knows how to insult someone with such blatant warmth. For the first time in a long time, you think of your family, and you spend days swallowing bile. You watch them burn her body, like you always do when your orders bring back dead soldiers instead of living people, and you are handed the match to light her on fire. The strongest smell you know is the smell of burning flesh. It resembles home in a way that comforts you more than sickens you, and it is that that sickens you the most.   
  
Soldiers trust those that fight on the front lines more than they ever will the people calling shots back at headquarters. It is only partly psychology that has you joining them, that has you practicing the long held battle cry of first to enter and last to leave. The names they have for you run the gauntlet of respectful to funny to annoying, but whatever they call you they trust you to have their backs, and you're too stubborn not to. When you join them again for the first time after being shot, they punch your shoulder and make jokes about being weak as a fucking gazelle, and the gratitude in their gestures makes you blush, makes you almost stammer in embarrassment. You never did know how to take a thank you, and taking a bullet for one of them makes them loose with appreciation.  
  
When winter finally comes, the slow slide of colder air and frost against skin, it feels like a broken miracle. You keep track by the seasons that past, and can't acknowledge the number you have finally reached. You don't celebrate your birthday, never have, but you wake up to flakes of snow falling outside your encampment knowing today is the day you were born, and realize you have been in the war longer than you haven't.  
  
Your life keeps passing. You realize you have more good days than bad. You think, maybe, just maybe, and it's more than you ever thought before.

 

 

 **Optimism Is a Line You're Learning to Cross**  
  
You are as much a child of war as its survivor. You remember licking stamps and pouring milk like you once remembered unicorns or mermaids; it is as much a memory as a fantasy. You daydream the smell of manure and the feel of sticky jam; the imperfections are the only reality that leaves trails you can hold on to with greedy fingers.  
  
You watch stars like constellations are a map you can follow. Water is a better discovery than gold had once been, and the smallest drops can drench deserts. You discover nature is beyond the dirt that coats you like a second, like a third, like a fourth skin. It is flowers that still bloom and vegetables that still grow; it is sex under trees with fruit and laughter everywhere else. Nature has always been prefixed with mother, and it blows breathe into your soul until you stop bleeding.  
  
You will never be the keeper of stories. You are a weapon, honed and ready, and the day you stop killing is the day you break covenant; abandoning to death when you can still fight is abhorrent, and if a part of you once craved it a larger part of you doesn't believe in forgiveness enough to surrender. You will protect until you can't, and the day is circled in a calendar you are never shown. Recklessness hums as loud as drums if you let it.  
  
Spring comes like a flood, and you begin to make promises you think you can keep.


	6. Mother, Mother May I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's fine," he says again, because Ron still hasn't moved. (Harry/Ron)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Abandoned Fic. [Originally posted](http://orange-8-hands.livejournal.com/18136.html) on LJ Dec 2011 and never moved to A03 because I didn't think it was very good. It's grown on me, but its kind of shitty towards Ginny & Hermione (who I love) and the Ginny/Harry ship (which I enjoy), so fair warning for that. I added an end note doing a very basic outline of how this turns into Harry/Ron/Hermione. 
> 
> This takes place at the beginning of movie 7, part 1. 
> 
> CW: unrealistic first time sex, (emotional) cheating, mentions of past child abuse, suicidal thoughts

**a. The Moment of**  
  
It is a dead godfather (escape family home), one summer, and before that a dead classmate (maybe a friend, maybe could have been a friend, maybe would have been one), and after that a dead headmaster (mentor liar save me), and he was born in July and summer became the days to learn how to hide grief, because there was a war coming, because war was here, and he didn't have time.  
  
He hands his backpack to Ron and goes back inside, and Ron still doesn't speak, not anymore, he said the words that needed to be said, but then he leans against the closed door and looks at Harry across the expanse of a small room. He looks like he's struggling to find words, to find something, and Harry wants to close his eyes and just let it be tomorrow, let it be a month later, let it be winter so he can escape this cloying grief and be in the middle of a fight.  
  
"It's fine," he mutters, let's his arm fall across his eyes to block out the weak trickle of dawn light stealing into the room. They have to be up in a few hours, he thinks maybe kitchen duty. It is the final week of wedding preparations and Mrs. Weasley has very long, detailed, scary lists for them all. "It's fine," he says again, because Ron still hasn't moved. "I'm staying, you were right, I promise not to do a runner, go back to bed."  
  
Ron speaks slowly, like he's still working it through. "It's not fair to you, mate. It never was. I got...I got jealous, of the good parts, but you can't just take the good parts."  
  
Harry removes his arm and sits up slightly; Ron is still leaning against the door, small frown in place, looking at Harry carefully, smartly, like the time he asked if Harry really wanted to kiss Cho, like the time he said, "why can't they help?" and Neville and Luna and Ginny came with them (second line of defense), like the time he started to apologize for being a shitty friend and Harry suddenly discovered it didn't matter, he wanted Ron to talk about how cool the dragon was. Hermione was the smart one, out of the three of them, always had been, always would, but sometimes Ron got the look in his eye that made sense only to someone who got trashed playing chess with him, only to someone who saw his eyes widen and understanding sicken his face immediately when he saw a small scar bleeding on his hand, only to someone who knew him really, really well. Harry felt stupid with Hermione and never with Ron, but that doesn't mean he wasn't, doesn't mean sometimes Ron didn't say something and Harry felt it vibrate in his mind for days later.  
  
Whatever is on Harry's face makes Ron's frown deepen, makes him take steps until he's sitting on the side of Harry's bed. Harry is sitting up and it's not like they haven't done this before, not like Harry hasn't woken up in Madam Pomfrey's wing with Ron sitting by his bed if he wasn't in the bed next to him, but this is something different. Harry feels his chest squeeze but he doesn't move, doesn't say anything when Ron leans over and kisses him, softly, quietly. He pulls back but Harry chases this, Harry has been chasing this, and Harry groans and pulls Ron closer, feels their chests meet. He licks into Ron's mouth for the taste, hears him moan, and it feels like home, like something that has been offered and always snatched away again. He wants this, has always wanted this, but he knows foolish dreams (has always had foolish dreams) and he knows limits, and he knows it was never just about settlement when he was with Ginny, but that was part of it, maybe a larger part than Harry wanted to admit.  
  
He takes Ron's shirt off, fumbles with his own as Ron's hands tangle in his in haste, and then he gets to follow freckles, like maps of stars, like constellations of hope, and his tongue leaves behind a trail of fire. Ron just watches for a moment, eyes heavy and dark, his skin the faintest flush of red, and then he's pushing Harry back down and their pants are off and Ron is sliding against him. It feels good enough for Harry to have trouble keeping his eyes open, but he wants to see, and Ron is watching him just as intently, just as carefully. Harry knows it is awkward, has to be awkward, neither of them have done this before, there is fumbling, there is guesswork to see what the other likes, this is rutting against skin, but it doesn't feel awkward, just feels good, just feels right, and they are both panting, both shaking, and Ron's hand is suddenly on them and Harry's eyes can't stay open anymore, too much pleasure, too much, too much, too much...  
  
Ron cleans them off with his shirt and lays next to him, both squeezed tight in the small bed. Ron is taller than Harry, and his shoulders are broader, and Harry wants to live under them, wants to stay forever, and if Harry had ever imagined this (Harry did not let himself imagine this) he assumed he would curl around Ron, would need him more, would have to fight for that bit of intimacy. Harry did not touch easily, not with his childhood, and Ron was teaching him, the Weasleys had been teaching him, hugs for hello and hugs for goodbye and sometimes just hugs because you were there, but Harry always found it easier to be hugged by Hermione than by Ron (can't let him know) or his family (not his family). Ron was respectful of that, tempered his usual exuberance for him, just one of those unspoken truths of their friendship, and so Harry always assumed he would have to push for the intimacy of being wrapped around each other (he never let himself imagine this) because Ron would think he wouldn't want it.  
  
But Ron pulls Harry close, pulls him in, and Harry drops his head on Ron's chest and listens to his heartbeat. He is starting to tense up, he is starting to think beyond the pleasure of the moment, and it is not a good thought, it is definitely not a good thought, but Ron just runs his hand up and down Harry's back and mumbles, half awake, "In the morning, Harry."  
  
Ron is his best friend and Ron is home and Ron is family and Ron is going to help him fight a war, and if Harry has to lose that in the morning then he'll be the thief his Uncle Vernon always accused him of being and steal this night to be tucked in the deepest of his memories. No matter what happens in the morning (Hermione Ginny Mrs. Weasley betrayal), the path of freckles he got to follow, the path he is sleeping on now, will let him fight off a hundred Dementors, even if he never gets to see them again.  
  
****

**b. The Aftermath**  
  
Harry woke slowly, which meant he was either at Hogwart's or the Weasley's, because what used to be home meant Aunt Petunia yelling at him, pinching him, scolding him to get started, and it took several years of Ron telling him to get his arse back to bed, they only needed five minutes to get dressed and to the Dining Hall on time, before he learned the fine art of sleeping in, of slowly rising. The first year and most of the second involved Ron's rolled up socks - usually the dirty ones, Ron was his best mate after all - being flung at Harry's head until he'd fall back into bed. It wasn't until third year when Harry actually managed to fall back asleep after he woke up early, and not until fourth that he stopped waking up all together. _See_ , he had wanted to say to Ron, _see, I've turned as lazy as you_ , but they hadn't been speaking at the time.   
  
(The next morning, after Harry took the egg from the dragon, Ron flung his socks at Harry's head and laughed, long and deep, Ron's best laugh, and said " _bleeding hell, you were supposed to wake me, we're both late now._ ")  
  
"Come awake the rest of the way then," Ron murmured, his voice a soft rumble in his ear, and Harry was suddenly painfully awake, aware that he was still lying on Ron's chest (makes sense, neither of them move much in sleep), and that they were both still naked, both still -  
  
_I slept with Ron_ , Harry thought suddenly, and grinned, and then, _I slept with Ron_ , and was nauseous.  
  
He let go of Ron and sat up slowly, like the morning after Seamus and Dean had sneaked in bottles of firewhiskey and shared them around the room, and Hermione had taken one look at them and said in her loudest voice, "Did you sleep well then?" and kept offering them plates of bacon and dragon milk cheese and her sweetest smile and asked if they learned their lesson after they spent most of the morning classes escaping to upchuck, and Hermione, he did this to Hermione, he didn't even think about her (he thought about her, he didn't care) and what did he do now?  
  
"Fuck," he said, and heard Ron laugh. It wasn't his best laugh but it was real, amused, and Harry finally turned to Ron, finally looked at Ron in the morning light. His skin was pale behind the red blush and he had freckles all over, Harry had licked those freckles just last night, and he grinned again - Ginny, how did he tell Ginny - and lost it again just as quickly. "Fuck," he said again.   
  
"So was this a one off, then?" Ron asked, voice careful, sleepy smile gone.  
  
"No," Harry said quickly (he could have this?) but "Yes" (Hermione Ginny Mrs. Weasley betrayal) but "No" because this was Ron, and this was worse than when he fell for Ginny, this was a thousand times worse, because as much as he wanted her this was _Ron_ , and as much as he thought it may have affected his friendship with her brother it never would have broken them but this was Hermione, this was the whole Weasley family. It was one thing to try with their daughter and another thing entirely to try with their youngest son, and Mrs. Weasley's arms around his when she gave him her brother's watch is the closest he's had to a mother since he was a year old.  
  
"Fuck," he finally settled on, and Ron had that look in his eye again, that too observant look he got maybe once a year, and this was twice in as many days.    
  
"It's up to you mate," he finally said, voice soft but firm. "But mum is gonna come banging on the door any moment with a list as long as my arm, and I much rather be dressed when that happens."  
  
"What about Hermione?" Harry asked, because that was first. They may have spent part of third year not talking to her, and Ron and her spent most of sixth year fighting (bloody hell, they spent most of every year bickering), but she was his best mate and she had obliterated her parents to go on a treasure hunt to defeat Voldemort and he shouldn't have done this, he shouldn't have let this out, it was too big to ever put back in and she'd know as soon as she saw him, saw them, she knew everything.   
  
Ron looked uncomfortable for the first time, which as far as Harry was concerned was about bloody time. If he had ever imagined this (and he hadn't, he really couldn't have), he would have expected Ron to do the mental, not sit calmly and ask Harry what he wanted. Out of the two of them Ron still flinched at Voldemort's name, still ducked his head when Slytherin teasing got bad, still got into the most pointless fights about everything, still got his girlfriend to break up with him because he couldn't do it himself. Nobody would ever have described Ron as _mature_ , and Harry did not like that suddenly he was, because for maybe the third time in his life Harry felt like a child, seventeen and stupid with it, and not like the boy who defeated Voldemort.    
  
"It's not - I don't - " Ron fell silent, finally shrugged. "It was always going to be you or her. She may be hurt it isn't her, but she's not going to be surprised it's you."  
  
Harry could feel his mouth hanging open, just slightly, and Ron rolled his eyes and laughed and the blush came back. "You talked about this?" Harry finally asked, because out of everything (he always knew Ron had freckles all over but now he'd _licked_ them) that Ron had an actual conversation about this was the most shocking.    
  
Ron went even redder, and Harry got to see it did go all over his chest. "Blimey, course not, Harry. But it's Hermione," he said, stressing the last word, and yeah, Hermione knew, Hermione knew why Ron was with Lavender even if it hurt, knew why Harry was suddenly looking at Ginny, knew the trap that Harry got his godfather killed for. Hermione was book smart and Hermione was people smart and Hermione had always been Harry and Ron smart, knew them better than they knew each other (Harry wasn't prepared for the reality of this) and Hermione probably knew this was going to happen before they did.  "She's gonna know anyway," Ron finally adds.  
  
"Yeah," Harry said. They're silent for a moment, and then Ron says, "Harry? What's it gonna be?"  
  
He could hear, just faintly, the sound of Mrs. Weasley in the kitchen below. She'll start the coffee and start the sausage and start the eggs, and then she'll come up the stairs knocking on doors and thrusting lists at her children. She'll knock on theirs and they'll each have a separate list, something to do in opposite corners of the house from each other and Hermione, like she can stop them from leaving if she doesn't let the three of them talk, if she runs them ragged so they fall asleep immediately when they finally have a minute alone. Later on Fred and George will come by and distract her enough for them to take five minutes and go over plans one more time, so Harry can see yes, they're still coming, don't be a git, we had plenty of time to turn back and it won't be today that we do. Hermione gave up her parents and Ron gave up safety and he was right, it was always going to have to be one of them, they weren't the only ones who would follow him to the ends of the world but they were the only ones he'd let do so.   
  
If Sirius taught him one thing it was the happy ending you were promised wasn't the happy ending you got, and whatever you got it didn't even last long anyway, but while you had it - while you had it nothing would ever come close to matching it. "I want you to be happy," Sirius had said, hand clasped onto the back of Harry's neck as they watched the Weasley's lay about the living room, the only family he got a chance to know through his own memories and not stories he latched on to from any source he could. "When this is over, when we defeat him...I think we'll finally get that."  
  
Harry didn't always think he'd make it to after, not when he remembered the look in Dumbledore's eyes, not when he remembered he was running out of people who loved him and would die for him (he will not let it be Ron or Hermione), but maybe, just maybe he could be selfish and have it now.  
  
"You," Harry said, because Hermione could have him when he was gone, because he had already given up almost everything there was to give up, and Ron beamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Hermione finds out and she's incredibly hurt (and then gets offended on top of it when Harry tries to give her an out on the Trip) and Ron/Harry kind of fizzle out because its just the three of them and they can't do anything, not when Hermione is right there and coming back from watch with red-rimmed eyes. Probably after the Locket/Sword/Ron comes back scene and before they visit Lovegood, they finally get their shit together (I imagine first they tried to jump straight into sex and it goes horrible, and they spend three days being awkward as fuck before Hermione sits them down and they hatch shit out.) So the rest of it is getting used to being together, and then after the Battle, the explanations and finding Hermione's parents and sleeping for a week (Hermione probably sneaking down to the boys room because its not sex, they just can't sleep without each other right now, which may be when Ginny finds out if she wakes up and Hermione isn't there), they all move out together and/or back to Hogwarts for 7th year. This is also when they tell the Weasleys -- Ginny is painfully hurt and it takes years for them to become actual friends again; Mrs.Weasley is a little shocked/worried/etc and slowly works through all her conflicted feelings (remember the chocolate eggs she sent them), Mr.Weasley is nonchalant about it; its the first time they hear George laugh since Fred died; Percy is slightly uncomfortable about it for forever but he doesn't want to ruin his relationship with his family again so he never says anything; Bill is shocked because its Ron not because he hasn't come across polygamy before; and Charlie is basically like "this is the first cool thing you've ever done Ron" ("I helped save the world"/"eh"/"I stole a dragon from Gringotts"/"good point")


	7. You Are a Crooked Rising Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At one time, Emma fancied herself in love with Claire. Before Angel Incorporation, before Jimmy's body was sent back to her in pieces, Emma looked at her, at the way Claire grabbed hold and wouldn't let go of her, and thought _oh_.
> 
>  _You see me._  
> 
> Claire, as if to prove the point, has never bothered to ask for forgiveness.
> 
> [Inception AU]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sigh* originally for musingsdeme 2014 b-day, the small beginning of an unfinished fic
> 
> cw: mentions of Inception levels of mind violations

There's only one person who has the awful timing to call her when she finally finished a job and gotten into bed to get some natural sleep, meaning Emma just pulls her cell to her ear and hisses as an opening greeting.

"Late night?" Claire offers blandly.

She makes another noise, what might be confirmation.

"I have a job for you. LA, tomorrow by 5pm would be best."

"Ung." Claire waits. "I'm in, uh," she gropes for the word.

"Nonthaburi."

"Okay." It feels like something died in her mouth, and she still hasn't actually opened her eyes.

"If you drive into Bangkok I'll have a plane ticket waiting for you. There's a flight in two hours, with a layover in Taipei. You'll be arriving a little late, but it can't be helped."

She makes a whining noise because words are still too much effort.

"As always, I appreciate your quick-witted responses. Now get up, traffic will probably take you an hour."

"Hate you," Emma manages.

"Yes," and her voice is soft, almost pained. "I would imagine."

Claire hangs up, which is, all in all, probably for the best.

~0~  
  
Seventeen hours on a plane and Emma sleeps for most of them. Baggage claim moves slowly, and her body doesn't really register when Claire grabs the bright orange duffel before she can, hoisting it onto her own shoulder and making it look about three times its worth when paired with her pure black suit and discreet gold jewelry.

"Heavier than usual," Claire comments, and starts to walk away.

"I added some bricks, just for you," Emma says, and clutches her purse closer. There's something unsettling about how goddamn sunny L.A. is; she may not have picked up a coffee habit like her fellow Seattleites, but she appreciated what fucking weather was supposed to look like.

They make it to the car and Claire hands her an extra pair of sunglasses, a small tilt to her mouth when Emma glares at her for not doing so sooner. "This better be good," Emma grumbles, getting into the passenger seat with only a slight slam of the door, because she can't lean in and lick at the smirk, and she can't seem to stop running when Claire calls her no matter how far away she manages to get, and Emma was pretty sure the way her stomach fluttered was supposed to stop during the heartbreak phase. "I was actually planning on going site seeing," she adds when Claire slips into the front seat.

"If by site-seeing you mean seeing how many restaurants you can reach in a week," Claire says, as she turns on the car on, and then, "His name is Tommy Jenkins." Claire hands over a thick file one handed, because Emma will have fresh sheets and an extra bottle of shampoo that smells like apples waiting for her, but Claire will put her to work first. "Raised by a single mother, he graduated Michigan State University with a BA in English almost twelve years ago. He's been a sales broker for Aetna Dental Insurance for the last four years. They've been expanding his territory steadily, and he gets positive if general feedback on his annual reviews. His last girlfriend dumped him four months ago, he has one dying potted plant on his apartment balcony, and two overdue library books."

"Oh good, I was worried you made me fly here for something boring."

"His real name is also Ben Braeden and he's been in witness protection since he was sixteen."

Emma can feel her blood perk up. "Really."

Claire can still manage to look fond, when she tries hard enough. "Prepare yourself, we're going to be entering Hollywood level bad."

"I love soap operas," Emma murmurs happily, which isn't exactly true but makes Claire's almost smile grow. 

"Sid and Brigitta Hayes, brother and sister serial killers moved next door and kept killing people. Ben was in their garage to go joy riding in their '70 Chevrolet El Camino SS and came across a bagged body. Runs home, tells mom, who heard wolf one too many times, so Ben goes again to get pictures, gets caught by Sid, gets chased, and mom ends up killing him with an old boyfriend's shotgun. They move houses, and a year later Brigitta comes after them, but mom once again comes to the rescue. Brigitta manages to escape, promises retribution, and they enter the program."

"So whose the client?"

"A woman named Ava Wilson. When she was twenty-one Ava came home from a surprise weekend with a friend and found her then fiancé butchered in their marriage bed." Claire flicks her blinker on, merging their way onto the freeway. "I included pictures of all the crime scenes," she adds.

"But of course," Emma murmurs, and sees Claire's hands squeeze, just once, on the steering wheel. Emma honestly didn't mean to slap Claire with Jimmy's ghost, so she drums up a mocking smile and says, "You are, as always, the picture of competence."

"Well one of us should be," Claire shoots back, and then flushes.

Emma glances out the window. "So Ava Wilson?"

"Yes," Claire says, a layer of gratitude underlining her tone at the focus back on the impersonal. "She's hired private investigators, offered rewards, helped fund a charity that works with grieving spouses and children of murder victims, and last year she finally got a tip that ended up leading her to Braeden."

"And why Braeden?"

"She's gotten very, very good at her job, and she thinks there's something fishy about this case. She think he knows something he never said, something that could maybe lead to the killers. She's desperate and grieving and there's a chance this will finally get her closure."

"She's friends with Krissy and Josephine, isn't she?"

"Krissy. They met when..." Claire trailed off, narrowed her eyes at the traffic.

"I'll bet," Emma says lightly. "And you saw the scenes?"

"Yes."

"And you actually think there is something he's hiding, don't you?"

Claire manages to not turn her whole head to her, but Emma can see the way she wants to, the little motion that cut the move short. "Yes."

There is something either really horrible or really funny about knowing someone so well. It's Emma's job, but it's also just Claire.

So Emma opens the file, starts to read, lets Claire navigate the rest of the way in silence.  
  
~0~


	8. Choose Your Own Adventure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's just get to the root of you, shall we? [Emma-centric]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> of course I basically stopped writing this when it became less 'Emma + Her Life Summary + Feelings' and more 'plot time' - hopefully one day I'll come back to this one cause I really loved my plans for it. 
> 
> cw: violence, (emotional) manipulation, canonical filicide/whatever the niece version is

Your story starts before your birth.

At some point you meet a werewolf. You come across him in a small clearing, slumped over a log and staring at the dirt on his long covered jeans. He barely rolls his eyes up to glance at you when you come through the trees, attracted by a flash of light. Just lifts his hands up, as if to say _here_. As if to say, _come on, please_.

You finger your knife (third one, stick not long enough, blade sharp enough to cut air) but he makes no move. You're glancing around for a trap, starting to make back up motions when something about you finally registers. "Wait," he says, his muscles shifting, and you have the knife up high fast. He stills, but says again, "Wait."

"What?" you ask. Your voice is hoarse, disused; liquid is a luxury.

"Just -" He's starting to perk up, and at this point you're vibrating slightly, waiting for a move. Amazon strength is about even to a werewolf, but this guy is bigger than you, maybe here longer than you, probably has more friends than you. "Don't you...aren't you tired of never talking to anybody?"

You shrug, still rubbing your blade, a soothing back and forth with your index finger. "Dating scene get you down?"

He laughs, scrubs his face. "Yeah, yeah, you could say. Just, you wanna talk?" He must see something, maybe your eyes go red, its instinct to keep them that way these days. "Just talk, I swear. It's...if I don't talk to someone I'm gonna lose my mind."

You don't agree, trying to listen for his buddies, for the trap, but he acts like you do, maybe like its a real date, _hi I'm Tommy and I like long walks on the beach_.

"I'm Marcus," he says.

"Joanie," you say, after the pause goes on too long.

He tells you he's a werewolf, his origin story (twenty-one, an undergrad working on his lit degree, and it sounds as strange as anything else you've heard), how he died, laughs at himself in a way that doesn't sound like humor. "Guess that's how you start in Purgatory, right? What caused you to get here." He shakes his head. "What about you?"

"Vamp," you say, even though your eyes may have turned. Not like you haven't been looking at his neck for awhile. "Was out at a party, had a little too much to drink, and suddenly..." You trail off, and he nods, filling in the blanks for himself.

"Guess we're mortal enemies then, huh?" You must look confused because he adds, "You know, vampires versus werewolves. Big trope in literature." He launches into examples, and you nod along, catch maybe half of them. You don't know how, just like you don't understand how you know English and Greek and Spanish, just like you don't know why long walks on the beach are a cliche. You think it has something to do with blood, maybe one of the rituals used to help someone whose lived for only thirty-two hours blend in with people who had a lot longer to pick things up, but you can't say for certain, will never actually know because you couldn't pass initiation.

You don't even realize you're moving closer until he pauses to smile at you. "So you get into those Twilight books?"

They ring a faint bell, but you shake your head, finally sit on the rock perched far enough away from him so you'll be able to move before he can reach you.

"Yeah, good," he says. "You don't like the pretentious crap either, right? Like you aren't wishing you had a copy of Catcher in the Rye?"

That rings a faint bell too, but you know how to play to a crowd. "Nah, I like murder mysteries."

"Yeah?" he says, laughing easier this time. "Me too. They open with a bang, you know, don't spend fifty pages detailing the character's entire bloodline. Just first page, body shows up, story gets right on it. Same with cop shows, Law and Order, all of them. Two people walking, bam, body in the dumpster."

"Dun dun," you say straight faced, and he really laughs now.

"Exactly. That's my favorite thing. It's just -"

The body slams into you from behind, hand twisting your knife away as you land, hard, face bouncing off the dirt. Something inside of you cracks from the weight and you gasp, try to squeeze away from the body on top of you. There's a grunt before you're rolled over, face to face with a man at least three times your size. You're trying to wriggle away and the motion causes you to rock into him, feel every single bit of him slide against you.

You're making noises, don't have the focus to try to stop them, and when he grins you headbutt him as best you can. It doesn't do much but it loosens his grip enough and your hand is scrambling for your knife, you have it in your hand and through his neck before he recovers.

You skate out from under him as he crushes you, heave yourself away. There's two others and Marcus and you have your knife in your hand, eyes red and teeth bare.

"Come on," you say, challenge in every word. It may be a movie quote.

  
                       ~~~o~~~

You don't know much about your biology, but Amazons tend to remember everything of their life. If you try hard enough, you can hear a voice declare you Emma, but your first real memory is cherry wood bars and your mother's face, eyes tired, offering you a stuffed animal. She's talking on the phone and you don't really understand words at the time, not until the end of the conversation, just the word good-bye.

The stuffed animal is a rabbit, white, and you're too old but you're chewing on the rabbit's ear anyways. It's soft, and it has a smell you don't know how to explain. Your mother shakes her head when she hangs up, cups your face in her hand. You still, watching her watch you.  
  
"Emma," she says, and rubs her thumb against your forehead like a blessing. "Let's see if you can walk."

  
                       ~~~o~~~

Sometimes, when something is trying to kill you, when you are trying to kill something, sound disappears. Like Purgatory is holding its breath, waiting for the victor. And when the sound comes rushing back in, the whimpers you knew you were making, the way the blood drips from your fingers, the way he's still almost begging even though it sounds more like whistles (not to live, its too late for that, but for you to finish it, because he is in a lot of pain and lit majors don't prepare you for this), when the sound comes rushing back past your ears like a roar, like a crowd cheering...

You, who choked when it really mattered, you keep surviving.

  
                       ~~~o~~~

You know your history a little better. Not all of it, but most of training was about teaching you the main traditions, and like the books and movies and slang some of it just got sent into your brain automatically.

The first thing they do after all of the new children are picked up and delivered is dress you in white and line you up in a room with too many candles. There are five of you and without being told you stand tall and proud, chins lifted. Cassia picks up a golden goblet and says, "You are sisters. You bleed for us and we for you. We are blood. We are the tribe, and it is your sacred duty to protect, strengthen, and serve the tribe."

With a golden dagger she slices your forearm and drips into the goblet. Does the same for the other four girls and then herself. She pours the goblet over small pieces on the tray.

"This is tribute to the one who created us and protected us. We hunt for her. We kill for her. And now we consume that kill as a symbol of unity with those who have completed their blood missions and furthered the life of the tribe."

She goes in the other direction this time, Alexa carrying glasses of milk behind her, like this is an after dinner treat. You think milk means something but you aren't sure. She pauses before you, and there's something just a little slower about you than the others. You don't know what.

"Go ahead Emma," she says. "You need to eat."

You do.

                       ~~~o~~~

At some point you hear about a human, slicing and hacking his way through monsters, trying to find an angel. You ignore it, slip away from where he seems to be. Maybe it isn't him, a human who makes it into monster land and treats it like hide and seek, who leaves scattered bodies in his wake. Maybe it is him, someone who owes you, someone who maybe would want to protect you.  
  
Maybe he is your human, but you're not his angel and after awhile you're far enough away the rumors no longer reach you.

  
                       ~~~o~~~

The first time you hear your father's voice he's just a man asking about a flask and taking up your mother's attention. The first time you meet him, actually meet and hold a conversation with him, you're standing in a motel doorway and he's blocking your entrance. Adrianna's in a car waiting, gas off because _you're too slow, Emma, but I guess you have all night_.

Truth is you don't have all night, because Cassia gave you a look you have a feeling you'll be seeing the rest of your life, like she's worried you may actually be defective, and not just weak. Like hunter blood, or maybe just Winchester blood, is ruining everything else you're made of.

They give you simple rules to help make things easier, because he'll be on guard and will know you're not human a lot faster than he'll know you're his daughter. They tell you don't lie, and show him your afraid, and ask for help. Remind him with everything you've got, they say, that you're his daughter and he owes you. Remind him, because he's a hunter (Winchester) and it's quite possible he won't remember otherwise.

All he has to do, they say, is turn around.

"But isn't that the coward's way, waiting until his back is turned?"

It's Alexa who holds your shoulders and stares straight into your eyes. "You do whatever it takes to make it, Emma. He's been hunting since he was young and you were born less than three days ago. All of your knowledge has only settled so deeply inside of you, all of your muscles are still too untrained. You'll have plenty of time to prove yourself, Emma. Just make it through this."

You don't. But isn't that just how the story goes.

  
                       ~~~o~~~

When you first get here, you recognize surprisingly few things, living in Purgatory. Black Shuck, kelpies, banshees, jackalope, they all have a distinct smell you pick up quickly. The others, those things that were once human, they just smell off, just smell of not-you, so you learn to pick up other clues, to tell you just what kind of creature you're dealing with. Vampires hardly ever travel alone, will show their teeth almost immediately.  Werewolves never attack at first sight, will always play friend first. Rugaru won't bother you if you stay upwind. Lessons, hard-won sometimes but _won_.

But the rest? The rest is just terror, not even of the unknown but of knowing, knowing without every needing proof how often you are underclassed. You're afraid of the dark, and the day time, and the moments in-between, until basically you're running around half out of your mind. You pick up snatches, here and there, of the things that live in Purgatory, call it home for centuries. No one knows what happens when you die again, down here in the dirt and smell of Purgatory, and you devote everything you have in not finding out first hand.

Not everything tries to kill you. Not everybody looks at you like food, or prey, or fun, and as long as you're willing to beg, to keep your hands up as you back away slowly, they'll let you go. You are so grateful it's sickening.

Amazons aren't at the bottom of the food chain - you have strength, and fast healing, and superior smell - but _you_ basically are. You think if you can just find another one, someone you can trust to watch your back, someone to talk to so you don't keep falling into conversations with anything that'll have them, you can make it. But there aren't any, or none you can track down. You wonder sometimes if they would even take you, uninitiated as you are, but you remember Alexa's kind eyes, the way Elyse squeezed your shoulders, and even if you aren't truly a member of the Tribe, even if maybe you are defective, you know they wouldn't leave you alone in this place, whether tradition said to or not.

Purgatory likes you, for some reason. It tends to clear paths to bring you to rivers that won't kill you. Rocks move without you seeing them, providing little caves of protection. There are spots it tries to keep you from, danger zones you can hear screaming from as you leave them behind. Sometimes dirt is softer, and the wind's whistles sound like words, and you're led to creatures for food, even though you don't need to eat. Sometimes it seems like the land is cradling you, and this is how you grow up even if you never grow older, learning survival.  
  
                       ~~~o~~~

What can you say about your death?

You died. You failed. Your father's eyes on you and yet he's not the one to kill you, and that...theft bothers you, more than it should. If you're going to die you want to die properly, die like an Amazon, and instead...

You don't lie. It is hard, harder than it should be to try to kill him. You see him watching and know he feels it too, know he should have had a gun on you already.

You catalog what he gave you, passed on with his blood. There is no doubt, looking at you, that you are his daughter, just like there was no doubt when looking at your mother. Your face is a perfect mixture of the two, nose, cheeks, lips, eyes; you've seen yourself in the mirror twice and it's enough to see exactly why your face belongs to you, exactly how it came from both of them. Blood and body and you wonder what else is passed on...  
  
"Please don't let him hurt me," you beg him, that perfect lie of truth and acting. _Please don't_...he is scary, your uncle, gun out and ready and no hesitation. He is -

Just what do you say, about your death? You died, you failed. You are sixteen and when you wake up you are in a land filled with things wanting to hurt you. You are hunted and hunting, just like the rest of your life, and you are -

Just what do you say?  

 

                       ~~~o~~~

 

You don't think much can surprise you at this point, but a Sphinx does it. Body of a lion, head of a woman, you followed Purgatory's path and stumble across her like an amateur, licking one of her paws as she sprawls between two large stones. Her head tilts as you come into view and her smile is sharper than claws.

"And who are you?" she purrs as she gets up, and you mean that legitimately, she actually purrs as she finishes her question, like you are an unexpected treat.

"Bah?" you offer, caught off guard. This is one of the paths Purgatory gave you, and it doesn't make sense to feel _betrayed_ by it but you do; Purgatory mainly leads you away from things that want to kill you and now you are in front of this creature and a very faint warning is in your head, though you don't know for what. Her claws, honestly, seems like warning enough.

"Aren't you one of mine?" she asks, head still tilted to an extreme angle.

You don't really understand the question, don't really know what to say at all, and finally she sighs like you are just too much of a bother.  
  
"You don't even know, do you?" she asks.

"Know what?" you ask, hand inching closer to your knife. Her eyes flick to it and back to your eyes to let you know she saw.

"Do you think you belong here, Emma?" she asks.

"How do you know my name?" you ask her, fear so strong it causes your mouth to dry. You haven't heard your real name in almost two years, and she says it...she says it kindly, and it hurts to hear. _You are Emma and you are named..._

"How do I know many of the things I know?" She is smiling to herself, now, the thin line between smirking and actual good humor. "And how do you know so little?"

That warning bell is getting louder, and you are missing something (a great many somethings) and you run through the conversation, once, twice, and it's on the third that some story you were never taught and yet somehow know slithers its way to the forefront of your mind.

You study her again, the way she's been slowly pacing in front of the two stones, the gap that seems larger than it first appeared, just how far you really are from the last creature you've run across.

"Are you guarding something?"

She doesn't say anything for a long moment, just staring at you as if she can see all of your flaws, and you've always had too many cracks. She is golden, all of her, Midas-touched, and you wonder if Purgatory has shifted its trees enough to bathe her in daylight while you stand in shadow as a lesson or a warning or a threat.

"Do you know why you are the only Amazon here?" and her tone is gentle for all her words seem abrupt.  "Do you know why a daughter of Olympians is in the Abrahamic afterlife?"

Your mind blanks out for a second, and then something comes roaring to life inside of you. "Are you guarding a portal?" you ask. _Are you guarding a way out?_

She keeps pacing, tight turns of her body that keep you in sight the whole time. "Do you know which side you belong to?" she asks.

You swallow the instinctive yes, change it to a question just in case. "Do I belong to whichever side I claim more?"

She dips her head slightly, as if rewarding you a point. "Death is death is death, and you are dead, but would you rather be with your own?"

"What do I have to do?" you ask.


	9. Our Hearts Are Hard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin went to the ~~desert~~ boathouse so he could decipher the Word of God. 
> 
> Meanwhile his mom is taking to hunting like a duck to water, Channing is adjusting to normal life after being demon possessed for a year, and Emma won't leave him alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of feelings about the lack of Emma in the Carver Era, the potential Emma-Kevin relationship, Linda in the hunting world, and this fucking show and its fridging. Technically started for the Kevin Big Bang.
> 
> tw: really subtle line about suicide

It may take a little coffee to get him going, and once he pushed his face against the counter and tried to absorb it, mildew style, but he hasn't slept more than four hours a night in weeks, so, fuck it. If he could attach it, like an IV, he would.

When Garth asked, that first night, he tried to explain working on the Tablet felt like pulling your own eye balls out of your head, rubbing them in sandpaper, and then stuffing them back in to read the tiny font of a disclaimer release no one can actually understand because Corporation Ass Covering is both redundant and terrible.

["You think they actually are some kind of hidden demon deal?" Kevin interrupted himself, alarmed.

"No," Garth said, but it took less than an hour for Kevin to realize the Winchesters left him with their incompetent, hanger-on hunter and Kevin didn't have time for that wishy-washy shit.

"Mom they could be demon deals," Kevin whisper-yelled into the phone, huddling in the bathroom because Garth was singing like a happy person in the other room, and that shit was just not right.

"I'll have your cousin Davey check it out, I'm saving Jen for the important things," Linda said.

"I think millions of souls being signed away is important," Kevin countered. In the kitchen the singing was starting to turn into words and oh Jesus fuck it was country.

"Jen is a third year associate at one of the best law firms in the country, I'm not wasting her time because people can't read fine print." There was a sound like a window breaking. "I need to go, honey, that may have been the demon I was waiting for. Make sure you eat dinner. I love you."

"I love you too," Kevin said, and then "wait what?" into the dial tone.]

Now it was still like pulling out your own eyeballs, rubbing them in sandpaper, and then trying to read the fine print of Corporation Ass Covering, except the author kept getting distracted by third grade poetry half way through.

But his day actually still had a schedule, just one that didn't really include hygiene, people, or anything nice, ever, and he made it until a little after 3pm before he realized he spent the last ten minutes looking for a post-it note so he could remind himself to tell Garth he needed more post-it notes, and he got up to make himself lunch.

He checked his phone while he ate his food directly out of the pan because dishes were too much fucking work. Voicemail from his mom with a quick check-in, a text from Garth saying the case was taking a little longer than expected ( _no surprise_ ), a text from Dean asking for an update ( _dick_ ), a text from Sam worded more politely asking for an update ( _dick_ ), and ten from Emma. 

  
**> >** he asked what I was reading so I told him Hamlet

 **> >** for ideas

 **> >** he didn't find it funny

 **> >** dean laughed but then I mentioned how in the family if poppa hit the grave the uncle could be a stand-in

 **> >** then they had one of those arguments and I had to stay in the motel while they did shit

 **> >** btw dean keeps recommending movies where kids go on revenge sprees for their dead dads

 **> >** not 100% sure he noticed

 **> >** this sucks the town is two feet across and tv has nothing on and sam TOOK MY CHARGER. I have 10%ish have to save it in case they call or you finally answer your fucking texts instead of watching cat vids like every good American child should be

 **> >** did you know they had infomercials during the day I didn't I thought that was for insomniacs or something but no there's just infomercials

 **> >** I'm buying you a vacuum and sending it to garth's

Kevin finishes the last of the pan and drops it into the sink. 

**< <** I will holy water spray the deliver dude

He debates a second, then finds the dishwasher soup, squeezes it directly into the pan, and adds some hot water to it, then walks back to his work table. His mom would kill him, for not doing dishes and for not cleaning up after himself and for especially not doing those things in someone else's place, but he just doesn't have the energy for more at the moment. If he remembers, he'll do it before Garth comes back.

 **> >** well I was joking before but now I definitely am

 **< <** send blender instead

 **> >** will do

 **> >** fuck tweedle asses are calling ttyl

 **< <** don't let them kill you

He works on the Tablet until his brain leaks out of his ears, then re-checks the alarm and falls into the pillow face-first like it doesn't smell like his unwashed hair sweat. His brain sluggishly works enough for him to fish out his cell and check messages, but Emma sent him the emoticon signaling everything was okay (its the one with the baby chick in the egg, tilting its head, and he doesn't get why she likes it but she does) and he didn't have the energy to read the rest.

  
_Fuck this shit_ , he manages to think, and then he's out cold. 

 

~o~

His mom - when she isn't apparently talking the extended Tran family into believing and enacting supernatural protections with the sheer force of her personality (and then getting them to leave Kevin alone, which, honestly, probably the harder part) - likes to lay false trails for Crowley and/or his minions on where Kevin is. Kevin hates it (that this is touching her, that she's in danger and keeps putting herself in even more, that apparently she can forge his signature perfectly) but he also knows he'd go out of his mind (faster) if she was in this space with him 24/7 (not to mention all the tablet-reading put to the side while she made sure he didn't spend his whole time glued to the rock), and more importantly _she_ knows that, so she respects his wishes and sticks to actual phone conversations once every three days and skype once a week (coincidentally, also shower day.)

The Winchesters send him texts all the time but mostly seem to accept his "fuck off"s (minus Dean and his request to make demon bombs), Garth only contacts him when he's late (always), Channing sticks to weekly calls, his family seems to be following his mom's orders in both letter and spirit, and he never got back into contact with any of his friends since he went on the run the first time. The only one who seems to find the way he wants to disappear until he can _just fucking finish this_ a problem is Emma.

  
**> >** I s2g a vamp once told me how he was the last of his kind before he was killed so why am I about to go chop heads off? extinction is way overrated. 

 **> >** apparently dead bodies are not a happy birthday thing for Dean

 **> >** I am holding one picture of Dean and Sam in stupid outfits hostage until I see you in person and can see your reaction face

 **> >** grandpa tried to kill me. so on my dad's side I'm 3/3 in warm and fuzzy reunions. btw head's up Hell had knights.

 **> >** update: grandpa doesn't trust me to shoot a gun. apparently showing him "my Amazon eyes" is just escalating the situation and I can wait in the car while they decide

 **> >** I just realized I died two years ago. well, on Earth anyway. who knows how Purgatory counts time

 **< <** Emma answer the fucking phone or I will call one of them

 

"I'm fine," she says, as soon as he picks up (on the first fucking ring, _take notes Emma_.)

"You sound it."

"I just... he told me about my grave, once. Side of the road, no burial, no salt and burns, nothing from... I'm an Amazon and that's all he fucking sees and he didn't even bury me like one and I can't, I can't-"

He can hear her voice hitch, those little sounds, and he's never seen her cry (has barely seen her at all) but can picture her perfectly. "He's a fuckwad."

"Yeah," she says, laughing a little in a way that sounded like she was still crying. "Yeah he really is."

The silence lingers, and he can hear her collecting herself, but he doesn't want to cut the connection, not yet. He looks at the Tablet and its late and not going anywhere (he's not going anywhere, it feels like most days), and then he grabs the book off the shelf in Garth's living room, shucks off his jeans, and crawls into bed about three hours earlier than he usually would. 

"You ever read Harry Potter?"

He can almost hear her roll her eyes. "I know Harry Potter."

"Yeah, creepy download, I know," and then winces when he realizes what he said, but she just huffs like she didn't notice the word (or didn't think he meant it meanly, because she notices everything), "But I meant actually read it."

"No," she says, dragging the word out. "Purgatory wasn't big on books, and the guys like me a little more focused on practical witchcraft when I read."

"Well, get comfortable, cause I'm reading to you until you fall asleep. This series is a right of passage for our generation."

"Uh huh."

"Just shut up and get ready. 'Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.'" He continues, can hear her breathing getting slower as she calms down, then as she starts to get sleepy, and before she drifts off he can hear the tiny murmur of thanks, and its enough.

  
~o~

His days get this kind of haze to them. It could be the lack of sleep talking (lack of food, showers, or regular human contact probably aren't helping, but what his mom doesn't know won't get him in trouble later), but everything blurs until sometimes he feels like he's been in this shitty room staring at the same four walls for years.

Technically he crosses off each day in his calendar every morning to keep track of how long he's stuck playing 'Scribe and Prey' while he does his best to metaphorically drill a hole through his head (aka read the fucking Tablet until his brain dribbles out), but what those days mean have kind of fallen by the waste side. His phone is set to give him ten alerts before all birthdays because that information and keeping actual track of it is packed away to make room for the hour long translation on the weird squiggle with the curl at the top and dot at the bottom, and his mom ruthlessly dragged him off the boat for Christmas, but the rest have been regulated to "don't care" status.

Except today is Valentine's Day, and he's on a boat that smells like gas and 800 miles away, and Channing only laughed the first time he said it was called Fizzles' Folly. Unfortunately, it takes his brain about fifteen hours to connect the "14" he crossed off this morning with what it meant, and by then it was too late for him to be anything but late.

"I forgot to send flowers," Kevin says when she picks up, because Channing hates small talk, especially on a school night. "I'm sorry."

"It's technically okay," Channing says. Kevin knew Channing for six years before they started dating, and he can hear the unspoken - _technically we're not dating anymore, and therefore you don't have to celebrate Valentine's Day with me._ (And underneath: _Technically, you're on the run from Hell and this actually counts as having more important things on your mind._ ) "It's not..."

"Not what?"

"It feels weird," Channing says, like she's confessing to something ugly. "Wrong. Like I should get something nice when last Valentine's Day-" and then she cuts herself off.

If Kevin ever actually spends one second thinking about all of the horrible shit he's been through since a light beamed into him and fucked over his life, he'd probably curl up into a ball or possibly even take his father's way out, so he doesn't, as much as he can. It helps that he spends most of his time having blinding headaches ready to split his eyes open from the strain of reading text that mostly vibrates and looks nothing like something he should be able to read. Channing, though, doesn't get that distraction, and its not like she has anyone else to talk to but let it stew in her own head, and Kevin - as much as he cares, and he does, so much - does not and can not know what its like to have a demon inside you.

"It wasn't your fault," Kevin offers. He abruptly gets up from the table and goes back to his bed, because he can't be in the room with the Tablet and he can't be outside where anybody could see (hear) him and have this conversation, and there's not many other places to go on this fucking boat he hid himself away in. "You had no way of knowing how to stop the demon."

"You did," Channing says, and then sucks in a breath. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, I -"

"Yes you did," Kevin says roughly, digging his palm into the bridge of his eyebrows. "It's fair. I knew what demons were like, I should have known they'd go after you."

"Shut up," Channing says. "You stayed away from both your mom and me just in case, and I swear, Kevin, I'm not listening to you blame yourself when I'm having an emotional crisis."

He chokes out a laugh. "Right."

"Anyway, I don't blame you," Channing says. "Sometimes I hate you a little because a demon made me go to my back-up school just so I wouldn't go out of state, but the rest of it isn't your fault."

He laughs a little easier this time.

"Your mom called," Channing adds, a little quieter. "It helped, having someone who got it, even if it was just for a few moments."

Kevin thinks about it. "Maybe there's a therapist who knows about the supernatural," Kevin offers, half-hardheartedly, because some of his white friends had them growing up and they were supposed to help. Except beyond everything else he can't see Sam and Dean knowing one (even though anyone who spends more than a second with them could see they should), and Garth thinks he _is_ a therapist.

"And tell my parents what? I'm already a disappointment."

There's really nothing to say to that, no argument he could make. Neither of them are where (who) they are supposed to be, and while his mom could appreciate the title of Prophet of the Lord enough to understand it, Channing doesn't have that out.

"I'm proud of you," Kevin finally offers into the silence.

"You've gotten better at this comforting stuff," Channing says, but he can hear the smile in her voice. "Anyway, I have a paper I need to finish tonight. Thanks for the no flowers."

"You're welcome."

He lays on the bed for a long time (too long); the ceiling has this mark on it, getting just slightly bigger every day, and when he looks long enough its like he can see his whole future flushing down a drain.

_President Tran_ , he thinks, _went missing his senior year of high school_.

(There is no lie big enough to cover it all, and the clock feels more like a time bomb with every passing day.)

He feels his phone buzz.

  
**> >** Found a base. Heading to you for pick-up.

**< <** WTF?

**> >** Long story. Pack up. We'll be there tomorrow.

**< <** There's a reason I went to the houseboat. Can't learn the Word of God near Man. I'm in my dessert.

**> >** Dessert is cake not fucking loneliness.

**< <** DeSert. Autocorrect. You know what I meant. Gotta do this alone.

**> >** Why?

**< <** Because its the only way I can concentrate.

**> >** This place is huge. You won't even know we're here.

**< <** Emma.

**> >** My name isn't a fucking argument. I'll see you tomorrow.

**> >** Don't worry. Guys don't want you either.

**< <** Reverse psychology doesn't work on me.

**< <** Emma I'm not going.

**> >** Who said anything about reverse psychology? They really don't.

 

By the time they've pulled up the next morning, he's showered, packed, and threw away all the food that could rot before Garth came back; he has no plans to be dragged away but he also doesn't like his chances against two guys twice his size and an Amazon.

Course, that's before he gets a good look at them - Dean moves stiffly like his ribs have been broken, Sam's in a sling, and Emma looks like someone whaled on her.

"What happened?" he asks, getting over to where they're stretching outside of the car. He kind of slides in place - he doesn't actually _know_ Emma, but she makes it really hard to forget that, and he's not sure if he should be checking her over for injuries (and do what if he finds them, he's not sure), hugging her, or greeting her however one meets up with a brief acquaintance you're in constant communication with.

(He's reading Harry Potter to her, he realizes with mortified horror.)

"The base tried to kill us," Emma offers cheerfully. "Well, me, but once they realized they'd get sucked into it they helped and the walls didn't like that."

"That's not why I-" Dean starts, and Emma talks over him to say, "Anyway, you ready?"

"I'm not going with you," he tells her.

"Smart," Dean says, and Kevin can feel his back react to that.

"Where's your mom?" Sam asks.

He glances at Emma - who doesn't look innocent so much as smirking - and says, "Gone. I was having trouble concentrating. Why are you here?"

"To bring you to the Bunker," Emma says. "Duh."


	10. Daughter Come Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 10.9 Remix - Claire could give less than two shits about using Castiel. As far as she's concerned, it's tit for tat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ughhhhh spn really
> 
> (at least you picked an awesome actress for her)

They throw you into solitary confinement, the shitheads, and fuck them if they think that's gonna make you cry or beg or whatever reaction they want. Amy would gut you like a fucking fish if she found out you couldn't handle a little not-the-fun-kind of alone time. Nothing new, even if this is the worst fucking time to get caught.  
  
You think it's breakfast, at first, or one of the guards just being a dickhead, and Jesus it feels like a punch in the face when he walks in. He's not your dad, your dad is fucking dead and you chased enough rumors to know that, but you still...hope, for just a second; not like Castiel was gonna come back for you. You want to destroy it, that face, he stole it and you want him to stop _wearing it_ , to stop looking at you - _you've always had my eyes, bub_ \- like he cares, but Amy keeps telling you to channel your aggression better when it comes to battle.  
  
"So what the fuck do you want now?" you ask, maybe too much anger coating your tone but you're _trying_.  
  
"Nothing. I just - I came here to help you."  
  
"Why?" you ask. You have a long fucking list he needs to atone for, but you still remember that night in perfect clarity and you have a feeling he won't see it that way. _Where the fuck you been, Castiel?_ is what you really want to ask him, but that won't help anything. _Catch more bees with sugar_ , your Gran used to say.  

"Because I've hurt you so much." _Yeah, dickhead, you have_. "Claire, where's your mother?"

"Yeah, about that... Can you get me out of here?"

"How?"

"Fly."

"I-" his eyes go sad (your _dad's_ eyes go sad), and says, "No. I can't do that."

"Fuck. Well you can't pretend to be my dad, they have him on the Most Wanted List and the guards may not know it but Sandy will and you need her approval to get custody of me. Just, you're an angel, right? You seriously don't know how to..."

"I could-"

"And without killing anyone," you interrupt, because the guards are mostly dicks but they probably don't deserve to be burned out of their skulls.

"I can put them to sleep. Unlock doors. But we will have to escape quickly."

"Fucking excellent," you say, and grab your jacket. 

"It will be better at night. I will come back."  
  
You swallow. "And I just gotta trust you."  
  
"Claire, I will come back."  
  
"Yeah, sure. Or maybe you'll get busy for another seven years."  
  
He frowns, and Jesus, Jesus you remember that expression on your dad's face, and he doesn't sound like him but that's _Jimmy's_ face, you spent ten years calling that face _Dad_ and that thing inside _killed_ him.  
  
"I will be back."  
  
"Sure you will Terminator," you say, not even pretending to make it sound like you believe him. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something else and then he leaves, and you fall onto the edge of the bed and dig your nails into your palms.

You kinda wished you punched him. Or, or maybe hugged him. Just to see if you remember what it feels like.

____

 

You're sleeping, that light doze that means you'll wake up if the locks turn, but it still takes you a beat to get your mind working when he comes striding back in. He's still in that same stupid outfit from the first time you saw him (and the second, and all the footage, and this morning, and has he seriously not changed clothes this whole time?), and you kind of stumble after him.

You try to check the pulse of the first guard but he just gives you a look and says, "They're sleeping. All of them. We need to move quickly," and it's not like you have faith towards the creature or anything, but you are on a timer. You get through the locks really fast - as superpowers go that's a pretty good one - and dive into the weirdly clean car he parked right in front of the entrance.  

"Did seriously no one point out cameras to you?" you ask him. He's a better driver than you expected, and its weird that that's the thought that really reminds you he's an _angel_. An angel just broke you out of group home. An angel is driving you - "Hey, do you even know where you're going?"

"We're getting food."

Well, you're hungry and someplace with food means the possibility of a phone and wallets you can steal, so okay. "You don't really know how to keep a low profile, do you? You know they think my dad massacred a whole bunch of people. And that he thought he was God, that was pretty weird too."

"I am sorry, Claire."

"Oh, well, that totally makes destroying my life better," you say, and can't help kicking the dash in front of you. He glances at you, and you kick the dash again. "So what was SucroCorp anyways? Demons?" 

"Leviathan."

No supernatural reveal will ever be as bad as angels, so you ask, "What are those?"

The fact that he hesitates before answering you is rich, and you have to bite your tongue from laughing in what was your dad's face; having Grace pour into you is the nightmare you wake up from most often, even with all the things that have happened since.  
  
"Before God created angels, he created the Old Ones. They were hunger, clever creatures, and they spread across Earth like a poison. God locked them away in Purgatory to keep them contained." 

"Purgatory? So how did they get out?"

He hesitates again, but this time, this time you know exactly why.


	11. it's the end of the world and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it's the end of the world (somewhere off screen), and Emma is a teenager. (S8/9 AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally the start of 8's 2014 bday fic so this has been in my drafts for a while. (also the title was supposed to be "it's the end of the world and all I got was this lousy ~~t-shirt~~ father" but I couldn't get the strike to work)
> 
> cw: mentions of violence, canonical filicide/whatever the niece version is

It's a meeting of what Emma mentally calls the Fab Five, even though four months into it there's actually eight of them now, but one more and she can call them the Fellowship and she's holding out until then. She snags a seat by Kevin in the back, who immediately takes the pen he's semi writing ideas with and makes lines to start a hangman game. Tracy makes sad eyes at her from across the room, but she's surrounded by gun guts and it wasn't fun the first fifty thousand times Dean made her practice re-assembling them, the smell of the oil making her sneeze.  
  
She's got _ _ _ _ M E N by the time the last one of them arrives and Dean calls the meeting to order. Dean gives them the updates of the various angel and demon fractions, which means Cas made it back last night, though Emma isn't sure if he's still sleeping or already left again. He lets Tracy handle the hunter updates (which mostly reads like a scroll of dead people, and she makes the appropriate sad face whenever Dean or Tracy unconsciously glance at her) but he frowns when she mentions a raid one of the teams asked for more bodies on.

"Who do you want?" Dean asks.

"Risa and David," Tracy says quickly, and adds, throwing an apologetic look to Emma, "They want more experienced hunters, and you still need Jamal and Mai for the warehouse run tonight. I'm thinking I should go too, maybe make a circuit of a couple of haunts. Josephine says they have some books that may help Kevin."

"Switch out Jamal and Risa and let everyone know. Keep the circuit to the square path, I need you back by next week."

"Yeah," she says, and goes back to the guns.

"Kevin?"    

"I think I finally found the part about the spell Metatron used, but... the grammar gets strange and the tenses keep shifting and there's a word all over it I can't understand. It may be easier to translate into an ancient language and then into English, but teaching myself something like Sumerian is a little difficult. I found an ancient codex in the library but it isn't helping much."

"Right," Dean says after a beat, probably to see if Kevin was done. "What about the weapons against the demons?"

Kevin scowls. "You said you wanted me to focus on the angel tablet. Get some more newt tails if you need a weapon."

"The extinct newt?" Dean asked, giving him a look like he wanted to beat Kevin's head in.

"No one has any?" Kevin asked back, already knowing the answer but not caring much.

"Hunters haven't found any on their raids," Tracy offered into the silence, and Aaliyah added, "We may have found a substitute, but we've reached testing stage so someone else is going to have to take it."

"Surprised you haven't found any in this place," Kevin muttered as Dean made noises about bringing their new weapon on tonight's raid, and only winced a little as Emma stepped on his foot, hard. She knew exactly who was going to get stuck back on sorting through the (awful, so awful) catalog system the MOL had only kind of used, and indeed Dean gave her a look that was as good as any words he could have said to convey the order.

"Kevin, keep working on the angel tablet then," and Mrs. Tran's hard look kept Kevin from muttering anything else, "that's our priority for the moment. Aaliyah?"

She shrugged. "The new bomb to test out tonight, and I'll do the de-briefing on it before the raid leaves. We have a back order of Palo Santo stakes. Cas came back with some new stuff for us to try out, but don't expect anything for a few days. Esther's managed some headway into some of the books but what I really need is another Latin speaker and someone who knows Japanese and Farsi fluently, because we've been through most of the English, Sanskrit, and Hebrew books by this point, and Emma's cleared the Greek."   

"Ok," Dean said, in the way that meant Aaliyah would have to keep doing what she'd been doing, which mostly depended on translation websites and bribing professors if the passages looked promising enough, because the only one who came close enough was Dean or one of the angels, and for various reasons weren't really an option on a day to day basis.

"Linda?"

"The two new members are settling in, we have a city run this afternoon, and Charlie's been very helpful in getting enough money for this." Mrs. Tran added the last with only a little disapproval. "Civilians are fine, though we're going to need to talk about spreading beyond the West Wing soon." 

"Yeah, let's table it for after the raid."

He looked around the room, but Cas still hadn't shown up and Charlie wasn't in town. His eyes landed on Emma's, but flashed away when she gave a minute shake of her head. "Ok, meeting over, same time next week."

And that, if you wanted to get technical, was that.

-o-

To be fair, it wasn't that the MOL couldn't catalog well, it's that Abaddon managed to destroy all the copies of their records before she escaped, proving once again - at least to Emma's mind - she was the scariest of the enemies they were facing. There was probably some kind of system they used, since all the items still had tags on them (one number and one code) and honestly what other point to the MOL was there, but since half those codes were the same thing she was pretty sure it meant "I have no fucking clue what this thing does, let's stick it in a draw and hope it never explodes" and she was not impressed.

She decided to take pictures of her unimpressed face and text them to Kevin, which is why it wasn't a surprise when Mrs.Tran called her and told her - to paraphrase - get her ass to the store. Mrs.Tran liked sending her to the store anyway, so she didn't even need the excuse; the hunters who Tracy got to stay in the Bunker got annoyed when they were sent on errands that didn't end with something dead, and even if the civilians could handle being outside the Bunker - and they really couldn't - they wouldn't actually be able to defend themselves if something did happen. (Nothing had, yet, and Emma would never admit it but she was actually really grateful. It's not like she would ever say anything, because you never told someone you would hesitant to kill them, and also it felt kind of hypocritical after Purgatory, but Emma actually hated that part of it the most.)

"ID, credit card, keys, list, weapon" Mrs.Tran told her, because she always said it before Emma left. She was pretty sure Mrs.Tran used to remind Kevin every time he walked out the door on his way to school to bring his backpack, books, and jacket, but when she asked Kevin thought she was making fun of him and they got into a fight that lasted three days. It actually sounded nice, and Emma knew a lot about humans but she still didn't get how that could even be interpreted as a joke; Oh no, you have someone who cares, oooo burn.  
  
(Besides, there were a thousand other things to make fun of Kevin about.)

"Got it," Emma said. Her ID, which put her at twenty, was actually the first present Dean ever gave her, but she only kept it in her wallet all the time because that's what you did with driver's licenses.

"And Emma?"

"Yes ma'am?"

"Do not speed."

 

-o-

Depending how you counted it, the Bunker had two cars. She thought Dean (not to mention Mrs.Tran and Kevin) was actually going to cry when they sold the fleet they had found in the garage, but it was bad enough to have one distinctive car in the town the size of a postage stamp, they didn't need twelve. Instead they got the biggest van they could find, and an old truck, plus the Impala no one else could touch and all the hunters had their own cars. Charlie had her own car too, as did Cas, so really when you got down to it Emma, Kevin, Mrs.Tran, Aaliyah, Esther, and the civilians had to share two cars, and the civilians didn't drive.

She took the truck because she was going by herself and she liked how tall she felt in it. She had to drive three hours to the second nearest city (never go to the nearest), but she kept the windows down and got to sing along to something other than mullet rock, so it was good. She usually ended up at Costco once a week, because there was a lot of people to feed and buying in bulk was the easiest way. The employees who at this point recognized her were under the impression she was the shopper for a sorority, and when Patty at checkout asked because her daughter was thinking of joining, she answered honestly.

"Seems like the only life I've known."

"Hmm," Patty said, and gave her the total.

Emma called Paul to help unload the trunk, because it was one of the ways to get him more comfortable being outside his bedroom walls, even if it was just to the garage. Purpose and a fast end-time, and he actually made it to the end of unloading all the supplies this time, but he had a harder time trying to talk to her than he usually did, and Emma sent Mrs.Tran a quick text as a head's up.

(Civilians were the wrong word for them, victims made more sense, the leftovers after demons got exorcised, too fucked up to go back to their life and try to pick up the pieces. Dean mentioned they used to just dump them at hospitals, but after Mrs.Tran recovered from being Crowley's meatsuit for five days she took charge of them. Accountant was not anywhere close to psychologist, but most of them seemed to be doing better, and she was always willing to give them more locks and salt when they started spiraling back. In the real world, Mrs.Tran would be the first to admit this was preposterous, but until they could figure out what shrinks already knew about the supernatural, it was the best thy could do, and still better than just dumping them; at the very least, no one here told them they were crazy for talking about demons.)

She checked in with Tracy, but there were too many hunters and she left pretty fast; she was fine one-on-one, but hunters in groups had extra twitchy trigger fingers, and even Tracy sometimes got a look in her eye. Aaliyah kicked her out (mostly because Esther had the biggest crush on her and got distracted enough that one of their experiments started to smoke when it shouldn't have) and Kevin had actually fallen asleep, which was rare enough she wouldn't have rocked the boat even if Mrs.Tran wouldn't have psychically known and killed her with her mind.   

She ended up going back to the catalog because she might as well do something useful, even if the stacks of boxes she still has to go through looked like it got bigger since she left.

She lasted twenty minutes before she hid behind one of middle bookcases and started playing Dumb Ways to Die on her phone.

-o-

Because of Mrs.Tran, she was actually a senior in high school, which meant for several hours once a week Emma worked under the fine art of cheating her ass off.  Despite what she assumed, angels were actually horrible at human history ("Do you really think I spent time watching every one of their pointless wars?" which, fair enough), but between everybody who ended up through the Bunker she was able to get most of the help she needed.

If you didn't include Tracy (because Tracy would find out and then be all butt hurt about it), Risa was by far Emma's favorite hunter. Everybody else - even Kevin - got all wah wah, supernatural forces entered my life and I got screwed, but Risa treated everything that happened to her like another fact of life she just hadn't been aware of at the time, and didn't complain. Like, did Emma cry about her mom abandoning her to her tribe leaders and her uncle killing her and her dad getting drunk and admitting he hadn't even thought to look for her in Purgatory? No. Just like Risa didn't complain about what happened to her; Emma didn't even _know_ , because Risa just said she lost some people and it happened and now she wanted to fix what she could.

(No joke, Risa was her actual role model, which was kind of weird because before Risa met her and learned about good monsters she probably would have killed Emma. Emma decided not hold it against her, because Emma was still mostly okay with the idea that the best hunter was a dead hunter.)

"You should read my English essay," Emma told her, flopping into the chair by her side. Risa had some maps Charlie managed to get of the place they were raiding tonight, but she'd had those for days and had already memorized them. (Risa somehow found out she was in _The End_ , read it - and Emma felt for her, she had tried reading a few but the purple prose was atrocious - and had even less faith in Dean's plans than before, which was fair because some of Dean's plans were really, really bad.) 

"Why in the world would I do that?"

"It's about Hamlet and we all know your love of _Lion King_." Sometimes they had movie nights (can't be killing people 24/7 after all, not unless they were back in Purgatory), and Risa had actually picked _Lion King_ to watch. It made Dean really uncomfortable so she'd been bribing people to choose Disney movies when it was their turn, but so far he was only emotional about Simba.  

"Don't lie, I've heard you singing the soundtrack when no ones around," Risa said, elbowing her in her side.

"If no one is around how do you know?"

"I'm that good," Risa said. "Now go bother your dad into cooking and let me focus."

Risa was the only one who ever referred to Dean as her dad.

"Ugh, how about not? He's probably with Cas."

"Ah, such focus," Risa said, rolling her eyes. "But seriously, beat it. Tomorrow night I'll take you to a movie."

"You don't have to bribe me," Emma said, but it was a really good bribe, so making as many long suffering sighs as possible, she left Risa to it, and only paused outside of the doorway for a second to listen to Risa laugh.

-o- 

  
They don't all eat together, if only because the only cooks are Dean (who doesn't always care) or Mrs.Tran (who considers the civilians and her son her responsibility, and everybody else can fend for themselves.) The hunters don't even eat at the Bunker most nights, because its too domestic or some shit, and has Emma mentioned how fucking weird hunters are? Dean definitely doesn't cook before a raid though, so Emma actually drags herself back to cataloging rather than bug him.

She makes it through one whole box before calling it in again. The meeting about the new weapon is still going on, so Emma makes herself some mac and cheese and watches episodes of _West Wing_ in her room, because it's a lot more entertaining than reading a book about how the government works. (Also Emma spends a lot of time trying to figure out what supernatural creature the characters would be if the creators didn't think everyone was human, and CJ could have totally been an Amazon.) 

She only leaves her room long enough to watch all the hunters head out. Tracy hugs her, because Tracy was taught to hug people she loves goodbye and hello, and then she leaves with Jamal and David to meet up for the other raid. Risa knocks shoulders against her and reminds her to look up movies for tomorrow night. She's on shaky terms with most of the other hunters (they _kill_ her kind) so she starts to back out. Dean catches her eyes from across the room, and it hurts, because sometimes in nightmares she remembers the gun in his hand, the feel of someone coming up behind her, but she nods and he nods and then she goes back to bed and lets out a shaky breathe.

She doesn't get out of bed again but she doesn't sleep either, her Netflix playing episode after episode. Charlie set up alarms to beep in her room so she knows when people come back without having to stake out the door, and so Emma waits. Her room is dark, glowing weirdly with the laptop light, and even with the worry slithering through her it feels safe in its own way, this nest of blankets and pillows.

Netflix asks her if she wants to keep watching, and then her alarm beeps. She turns on the baby monitor she set up and listens, but nobody's cursing loud enough to suggest a medical emergency, and they're not all quiet like a death, so Emma turns it off. On her laptop Bartlet says, "The only thing you ever had to do to make me happy-" and Emma falls asleep before he finishes his sentence.

-o-

Dean makes pancakes in the morning. Cas is still there, which is weird because she figured he left before the hunters went out last night, since he wasn't around when they took off. She says "hey" and he says "hello" and then there's silence while they wait for Dean to bring out a new platter, since everybody else already descended on his first batch and ate them like starving locusts.

She's pretty sure she's supposed to have more of a relationship with Cas, though she doesn't really know what more its supposed to be. Cas took her to his angel garrison once; she was pretty sure the bigger deal-breaker for the angels was being Dean's daughter, weirdly enough.  
  
She should probably resent him, or something, because Dean (again and again) picked him over her, but the people Dean picks over her is a long list. Kevin dislikes him, but he's not really around them long enough to come up with any new complaints. He's just kind of...there, with Dean, or gone, which makes Dean more of an asshole, and sometimes he has useful intel, and once he gave her a book of poems, which was still the only useless thing someone has ever given her for free.

Dean brings in the pancakes and a bowl of strawberries, and gives them (Emma, she's pretty sure Cas already knows) the highlights of last night's raid. The bomb worked, no one got seriously injured, they killed off most of the demons and captured one to interrogate.

"And I don't want to see you down there," Dean says, slicing into the last of his stack.

"You told me to catalog things, I have to be down there."

"Emma," he says, because he always believes saying her name in that voice will stop her from doing something. She wants to kick his shin but doesn't say anything.

"Emma," he repeats, and Cas looks up from where he's holding a strawberry as if counting the seeds.

"Yeah, fine, I heard you," Emma says, and takes a large bite.

-o-

One of those things they never talk about was Dean holding a knife to some vamp's head, making little see-saw motions into his neck, listing all the things he was going to do to him. Emma had been afraid in Purgatory, and she'd been afraid of Dean before too, but that was something...the vampire begged, and told him the last Cas sighting, and then Dean sliced his head off.

"Are you coming?" he asked, wiping the knife on his boot. He wasn't looking at her, and then he started to move, and Emma had followed. There were a lot of things gunning for her, these days, since she found him and there was that half-pause before recognition had set in.

They did find Cas, and they did get out, and later Dean had said, "Ok, now we find Sam," and Emma bit her lip so hard it bled.

There are, if you want to get technical, a lot of things she and Dean don't discuss.

-o-

Emma spends the rest of the morning cataloging stuff in the rooms not in the same area as the dungeons. She takes a break for lunch and manages to get Kevin to start chewing on the sandwich she drops off. She stays behind the door and when he finally chokes from the pepper she hid in the tuna, Emma considered it a good day.

  
_I'm going to find you and kill you_ Kevin texts her, and she sends back, _shaking in my_ with a little emoticon boot, because if he was too distracted to check the food he's too distracted to chase after her, and revenge would probably be regulated until the next time Mrs. Tran made him shower and kicked him out of the bunker.

She spends about five minutes working on math before sliding her homework away and creeping down to the dungeons.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW for those that this would bother (because it would bother _me_ ): the hangman word Kevin and Emma play in the beginning is "abdomen", and for people who didn't memorize West Wing, the quote is "The only thing you ever had to do to make me happy was come home at the end of the day" (2.15 Ellie).


	12. Lineage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma completes the ritual and kills Dean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of feelings about Emma and Amazons and how different tribes operate (and interact) and how society and belief systems go together and it was gonna be an epic story about a minor character and original female characters, meaning I was mostly writing this for myself and hence lost motivation to actually _write it_ fairly quickly.
> 
> cw: patricide, mentions of Dean's alcoholism

There's this weird moment, after it happens. You aren't sure if Charlene really wanted you alive, despite the knowledge she pressed into your skull and the script she wrote out and made you memorize. You aren't sure because sending a newborn after a trained hunter ( _Is he- Yes, and we can use this_ ) is kind of ridiculous. The blade still dripping blood, that's kind of ridiculous too. And the body; Charlene said to leave it but that seems... rude. For being a lethal killing machine he was just kind of sad. And drunk. You could smell both coming from his pores pretty easily.

You go to the fridge and look inside. There's two bottles of beer, a stack of sliced cheese, and a frozen burrito. The Elders didn't really tell you much about hunting or the Winchesters, but you get the feeling sad and drunk may be a kind of default. You eat a slice of cheese, which is kind of hard because you haven't put your blade down yet and the plastic holding the cheese is a little slippery. Looking around, you finish eating the slice and set your blade in the sink, then eat two more. It's not good tasting, but you still want to eat the whole stack. There's nine left; you eat four more and save the other five for the rest of your group, so everyone can have a slice.

You stick the cheese in your pocket and go back to the sink to finally wash your blade. You're watching blood swirl down the drain. Your father's blood. A hunter's blood. It's stickier than you thought it would be, and it smells like metal, and the towel ends up bloody when you use it as a sponge. You fold it up and put it in one of the empty cabinets, even though Charlene told you all not to clean up after the death. _Sacrifices should never be prettied_ , she said, and bared her eyes. 

You poke through the bags - and almost slice your finger off, who carries around an axe like that? - but its mostly clothes in two of them and weapons in another. You find a journal and pocket it in your pink suitcase, but nothing else really looks interesting. He wears a lot of flannel though, that's for sure. And has two bottles of liquor, which explains the smell.

You walk over to where his body is sprawled. His eyes are glassy and already it smells terrible, but you still lean over and look him in the eye. You haven't really been around mirrors but you got the gist of what your face looks like in car window reflections, and you compare his face to yours.

He's wearing a necklace, and you can feel the slight burn where Charlene looked at the locket your mom put around your neck. You lean close, snatch it off, stuff it in the pocket without the cheese. Then you grab your blade, the bag of weapons, the wallet from the nightstand, and your pink suitcase, and you head out to the next address Charlene told you about.

 

 

 

You were dropped off a block from the motel so you walk to the closest bus stop. Hannah gave you a few pieces of advice about how to travel, but you've never seen a map and the bus routes really don't make sense. Maybe if you read English, but its pictures so that shouldn't matter. You're too new, too young, not to catch attention, and you debate flashing red eyes. You can feel the shadows of men creep in circles around you, and you unfurl your body in the opposite direction of the motel room - larger and out and deadly.

The bus you pick is slow, and your mind slips in and out of the moment so everything moves in chunks. There's almost a clicking noise coming from the weapon's bag you took, and it accents the sound of the bus, and it seems like a long, slow drag awake when you switch buses for the first time, the money Hannah gave you held tight in your fist. By the time you get off the last bus and start to walk its the end of the next day, and the sun is sinking behind your back.

The house is large and off-white and its only as you lift your hand to knock that you realize you're the one who walked herself to the front door. You pause, let your hand rest against wood, because there's something in that thought that - the door opens, revealing Vida, who smiles and hugs you hard. You hug back, trying not to clutch too hard, and she helps carry your stuff into the house.

The other four are there too, and Diana sinks you into the couch and starts telling you about what happened with her and you pass out the cheese you saved them and Hannah gets you a plate of meat and Opal keeps grabbing your shoulder and shaking it slightly like she's having trouble containing herself. They make you go last because you were the slowest to return, and against the toughest father, and maybe you make it slightly more exciting than what it was, because all four of them are looking at you and it's almost awe.     

 


	13. They Call Me Darling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam leaves a gap in Purgatory, and Emma slips through it. [S9 AU]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted [on tumblr](http://oranges8hands.tumblr.com/post/113827893223/they-call-me-darling) back in March
> 
> tw: Hell and everything that implies (esp torture, sexualized), but mostly non-graphic

What is Hell? 

There’s a physicality to Purgatory, the way her heart beats in her chest and the sweat that drips down her back and the way her eyes ache, from keeping them red for so long. The way rope burns into her wrists when a rival Amazon gang captures her. The way Vada nicks her when she cuts the rope. The way it smells like blood, and ground, and not Earth no matter how similar the dirt looks to most of their eyes. Smells tell, smells win, and that’s a motto that crosses species. 

But Hell….a human [Sam, but what does she know about her uncle? pulled the trigger now she’s dead, and she can quote Queen lyrics but she’ll never see sweet seventeen] leaves a gate open. a gap. Emma’s never been human, for all she looks like one, for all she never completed her ritual by killing one. ( _Father_ ’s a dirty word, around these parts. Around most parts, really.) There’s no way she’s escaping back to Earth, no way to hitch a ride, but Hell isn’t so picky. So they slip inside. Curious, maybe, but hey that cat did come back. 

Diana was caught by a djinn once, told them about a world one degree off and still so perfect if you said yes, said let me stay. Hell is the opposite, only one degree right and a whole more wrong. Hell, frankly, _is_ opposites; you feel insubstantial and too heavy, feel like your thick blood is a fine mist holding you together. And uninitiated Amazons stick together, so its a pack of girls (“Been here thirty years and never aged” Marissa is said to say, but she died by werewolf before Emma ever arrived), a pack of what looks like prey, a pack of what looks like girls too fucking weak or scared and never killed, not till they got down here. Purgatory is a playground; mostly lethal and mean, little bit playful, little bit funny. (“Not ha ha funny” Susan says, and laughs like she’s tearing her own hair out.) But Hell finds prey like its their one purpose in life, and you can’t hide and you can’t escape and you get caught like a little birdie in a cage and then you get plucked, and it doesn’t matter if your girl by age or face or cause you morphed into one. Doesn’t matter your a girl, not here, not down where the demons play, cause when you let go of humanity you let go of a little more, and when that happens torture torture torture.

What do you do with seven caught Amazons? Well, you pass them around. You see if they taste like human, smell sweeter when their insides open up, feel better when your digging body parts into holes created by dull blades. You see if they twist; got souls, they should. Got souls, they do.

Demons have families, mostly home made after they become demons; sometimes the one who drags you into the pit (who makes you who you’re supposed to be) is a dad, is a mom. Sometimes its sisters, brothers, that funny uncle you wish never got invited to family dinner. Too human, is the problem with demons. Sometimes its who you bring with you, and Amazons are sisters like vampires suck blood; part of their genetic make-up, no matter what you do, whatever little fractions they create.

Demons get strength and demons get skills and demons (slice dice and smile pretty girl) get to walk the Earth. Amazons get family and culture and superior smell and superior strength and eyes that can see too much beyond five human senses. They have devotion, passed into skin and marked. So now we have a riddle and now we find out the answer: what happens when you turn an Amazon into a demon?  

There’s no real true belief, anymore. Crowley is King because he has too much power and the best of what Hell had to offer is dead. (Lilith is mourned. Ruby, despite rumors of her revealed ending, is not.) But Amazons… Amazons are made for belief, for worship, for kin and duty. So when Abaddon finds them, lined like soldiers, its like a reflected mirror - she was once a Knight, and now she can be Queen, and then (she knows many tricks - human tricks from Josie Sands memories, but that’s nothing to what the floors of Hell teach Knights) she can be God. And she takes their marks and invites them with ruby red (bloodied red) lips to be hers; a contract, once bound, is complete in present, past, and future, and they kiss back. (Maybe Emma hesitates, as she once did accepting a mark she had no choice but to accept. But maybe she didn’t; its been a long time in Hell, and Emma’s been purified by demons.) Abaddon brings them to the surface, gets Josie Sands body back in gear, and starts to wreck the world.

[and later, later there will be a hunter on his knees, eyes wide and horrified, and Emma will slip around where Abaddon holds his neck in her hands, and kneel, and complete a ritual older than Lucifer himself. And maybe that will break, something that can’t be broken. Or maybe she’ll bow her head, and laugh when Abaddon licks spilled blood.]


	14. The Third Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam discovers family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to store this somewhere other than LJ, so... my note at the time of posting was "Because hello, it’s been a season and he’s still down there and no one seems to remember this on the show" WHICH IS STILL TRUE.

Family is not about blood.    
  
If family was about blood, it would mean he has to listen to these two guys – one ridiculously tall, one looking wrecked – and he doesn’t. Family is not about a guy taking him to a baseball game once a fall and the offspring he never mentioned. He tells them this. He believes this.    
  
His hand still stretches out, still pounds the door, still reaches for his brother’s voice when the light comes and sears his eyes. He feels something enter and then he feels something tear and then he can’t really feel because everything is being smothered over by thick, pulsing fury.    
  
There is pain. At one point, in the beginning, he sees the two guys again – one still ridiculously tall and one still looking wrecked – and then there’s an explosion and some words and a body falling into a hole, but all of that makes up mere minutes, mere seconds, because instead of being smothered he is now being made to feel and feel and _feel_.    
  
Angels, brothers, know a lot of ways to hurt each other. They focus mostly on the tall one – Sam, middle brother – but they have plenty of time, of energy, of sheer creativity to aim his way too.  
  
Then he is gone, and he realizes he knew nothing about pain before.    
  
He was nineteen years old, when he said yes to an angel. Became a vessel for an angel. Because he had the blood of John Winchester, who had the blood of Cain and Abel.    
  
Turns out family _was_ about the blood.    
  
He never stops screaming.


	15. Dee's Awesome Research Skills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is why Tootsie showed up in their room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again I need to store this somewhere other than LJ
> 
> Timestamp to [Lollipops Will Grow In Your Garden](http://archiveofourown.org/works/351120). Probably makes no sense without it. Written because I'm a horrible person; I don't think [Bonnie Zacherle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_Zacherle) actually wanted this.

Dee was playing around on the computer because apparently when she was sick she wasn't allowed to hunt things (whatever, Sammy wasn't actually the boss of her, she just didn't want to watch Sam do research), and like always she was looking for weird ass things to tell Sam - because Sam was a giant dork and Dee was just awesome that way - when she came across a small article about My Little Pony, and how originally the creator Bonnie Zacherle wanted the ponies to be attracted to the evil residue in a person's blood and spend lots of time trying to overcome it with the power of pure pony love, and she thought about telling Sam and then she remembered the look on Sam's face that day, and then the look on Sam's face when _Lucifer_ escaped, and yeah, okay, maybe Dee won't mention this one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was going to be a second coda/timestamp from the pony's pov, but it never really worked out.


	16. Love’s March (I Will Follow You)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inside the last seal [S4 AU]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I need to store this somewhere other than LJ (this was seriously written ages ago), so...

"Winchester Brothers,” she could tell them, “Anael was not the first to rip out her grace, Castiel was not the first to fall in love and then fall to Earth.”  
  
_I am the Morning Star, and I did not disobey._  
  
_I loved._  
  
Lucifer crouches beside her in the seal, pacing as only an angel can pace, no movements but a restless shiver of fur stretching and cracking under his shell. She watches her brother carefully, but as it has been for millennium, he watches for the opening. For all that he hates humans, he still waits like all the rest for one to be born, for one to be broken, for one to open the gates.    
  
(Lucifer, in all his glorious fury, in all his wounded strength, holding out his limbs in offering. It is lonely, the fall, no matter how fast or slow it exists for. He does not say their word for please – to human ears, the words _praise be the one true Father in all his glory and thunder, that he may shine a light from my soul unto yours until the end of days_ – but he wants to, and it is enough. So she takes her brother in her light and carves out both their graces. She doesn’t watch them fall. She watches his face, grateful to be loved enough for this, perhaps the last time he showed gratitude.)   
  
_I do not regret_ , she tells him now. He does not listen. He – like many of them – never does. _But I wonder…_  
  
She watches Dean Winchester watch Samuel. She watches Castiel watch Dean.     
  
She too, once watched like that.   
  
Lucifer growls.   
  
_They think you will destroy the world, once you are freed. I wonder which of us told them that._  
  
Her brother fell to leave home, and all he has wanted since was to go back.   
  
She looks forward to seeing her Father.   
  
_This_ , she will tell him, wings unfurling, light pulsing _, is how you love._   
  
The Seal cracks. 


End file.
